


Disintegration (is the best album ever)

by dont_at_me_im_seriously



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Dystopia, Enemies With Benefits to Lovers to Political Terrorists (with benefits), Gallows Humor, Gen, Gunplay, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Psychic Abilities, the genre is: "that escalated quickly"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-03-02 19:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 136,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13325070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dont_at_me_im_seriously/pseuds/dont_at_me_im_seriously
Summary: Kyle's Sunday morning began with an appalling marriage proposal and only got stupider from there. Now he's on the run from the government, stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and contending with the idea that Eric Cartman might just have a heart to break after all.Turns out that it's always something mundane that forebodes the potential collapse of western society.





	1. Prologue: Wacky Teen Existential Crisis

Sometimes you wonder what other people see when they look at you. It’s easy to logic people out except when it comes to what they think of you. You didn’t even know what you looked like, really, until fourth grade when some dumb list the class girls made said that you were ugly. Are you ugly? Do you really have your mother’s nose? (Forecast says: yes) You hate your hair, but you grow it out - incessantly, stubbornly; the last time you cut it short is not exactly a memory worth revisiting every day of your fucking life. Self perception is kind of like the Schrodinger's Cat problem - how stupid you look isn't a quantifiable variable until observed and obsessing over it makes you insufferably self absorbed, right? But there's a point where you put so many points into the 'I Don't Give A Fuck' stat that it loops back around to 'Wait, Should I Give A Fuck?'. It's kind of unsettling to have basically negative self awareness when it comes to how you _come_ off, even if it's the result of a sort of self-possession that you actively - and maybe even a little _arrogantly_ \- cultivated.

You hate Eric Cartman, but he was the first person you asked this very important existential question.

_“I don’t like your nose.”_ (He said helpfully.)

_“That’s all you have to say? I ask you a deep, philosophical question and you think the appropriate response it to rag on me for having a Jewy nose?”_

_“I never said I didn’t like it because it was Jewy.”_

_“Yeah, well, I think it was implied.”_

_“God, Kyle, you’re so obsessed with your heritage! Typical -”_

_“- typical Jew self hate, I know, I know.”_

_“Kyle, I’m worried about you. Have you ever thought about going to therapy for all that internalized antisemitism? It can’t be good for you, carrying it around all the time.”_

_“Sure. I’m the antisemite. Shit, why do I even try to talk to you -”_

_“Don’t get your bitchy little panties in a twist. I said that I didn’t like your nose, not that you don’t have any good attributes. In fact -”_

_“If you’re about to say something about loving my hot ass or whatever, I’m leaving.”_

(Here, Cartman leaned over poked you right on the tip of your Jewy nose.) _“What ass?”_

Stan says that you should just ignore Cartman, at all times and always. Unfortunately Stan doesn’t know exactly _how_ bad a job you’ve been doing at that lately, and also he’s never dealt with Cartman calling him thirty-six times in a row while he’s out on a date. You’re pretty sure that Stan - monogamous to a fault - has never stood alone in the bathroom at the North Park IMAX theater fiddling with the hem of his scarf in the mirror to check how loose he can get it before accidentally revealing a series of ugly hickeys to his date that were obviously and very recently given to him by someone other than his date. Also, Stan has definitely never been given a hickey by Eric Cartman. Well, not on purpose at least.

With a sigh, you answer your phone: “What the hell do you want?”

Cartman’s voice comes back grainy. He has you on speaker phone, because of course he fucking does. “I’m checking to make sure you’re not screwing some ho behind my back the first chance you get.”

“Oh brother. Grow _up_ , Cartman. I’m sixteen - I’ve never even french kissed a girl for real before, I’m not gonna fuck someone I just met on the first date!”

“But you can fuck me on the first date? I guess it's good to know you aren't an equal opportunity slut.” You wince and pull your phone back from your ear. You are alone in here, right? You hiss into the receiver.

“First of all, we’re not dating. Second of all -” you stop yourself short. Ignore him, always and at all times. “Wait, there is no second of all. Fuck off and stop calling me.”

You hang up your phone by slamming it onto the slimy counter-top. Then you check to make sure it isn’t broken, because that would be the third one this year smashed in a flashpoint rage. Ike thinks you should go to anger management therapy but you’re not about to take life advice from a ten year old, even one who’s about to start ninth grade and who you love more than basically anything. He doesn’t know the full story; fucking Cartman _is_ anger management therapy.

On the way back to the theater you try not to wonder about what Cartman considers your “first date”. The whole Imaginationland debacle? Your AIDs roadtrip? God, he’d been so suspiciously _cheerful_ about that. Probably he has some sick sense of propriety over you because you still have his ten million dollar kidney churning away inside your gut. Was that when it started, the weirdness between you? It’s hard to remember so long ago but at some point - surely - the two of you must have hated each other in a totally normal, completely not-weird, definitely non-sexual way.

Your phone starts buzzing again.

You block him, which is a thing you do at least once a week. You probably _will_ go kick his ass later, even though you know that’s exactly what he wants. It’s not for him, though. It’s for you. Here’s why:

When you stumble back into the mostly empty theater, your date (who, incidentally, is actually named Nancy) beams up at you, even though you abandoned her to the mercy of an Adam Sandler tax-evasion epic for like fifteen whole minutes.

“Sorry about that,” you say, rubbing the back of your head. “My mom wants me to pick up some groceries on the way home and her lists can get kind of detailed.” This is not the first time you’ve used this lie.

Nancy giggles and nuzzles her cheek into your shoulder so that you can hear her over the deafening sound of stale fart jokes. “Wow, you’re such a mommy’s boy…”

“Uhhh,” you reply, because it’s not untrue.

“Don’t worry. I think it’s cute. It’s so rare to meet guys who respect their moms, y’know. You’re so _sweet_. All the North Park guys are such assholes!”

“C’mon, I’m not… I’m not that sweet.” She’s two steps away from calling you a hick, as if North Park teens have a leg to stand on in that department. 

She tightens her hands around your arm and giggles again. Shit: she really, _really_ likes you. “I mean it. You really are nice. Thank you for taking me out, Kyle Broflovski. This has been the best date I’ve been on in a long time.”

And, well, you don’t reply to that. There’s nothing to say. You stare, dead eyed, at the screen and run your hand through her hair at the appropriate time.

You wouldn’t call yourself an asshole, but you are definitely not nice. If you were _nice_ , you wouldn’t even be on this date. The chronicle of your _un_ -niceness would fill a book longer than ‘War and Peace’ - which you have only read the wikipedia summary of, but aced your seventh grade book report on anyway. Normally you would have read the whole book, but you had a point to prove and you like being _right_ more than you like to be honest. Because you’re _not nice_. It's been a really long time since you could think of yourself that way.

So really, having willingly received hickeys from Eric Cartman is the least of what you deserve. You’d like to say that the fact you feel this way is evidence of an inferiority complex, and that you kind of hate yourself so much. The real problem is much more troubling: it’s exactly the opposite.

 _So_... that’s what this story is about.

“Are you laying on your back in bed listening to The Cure?” is the first thing Stan says when you answer the phone.

“No,” you say, _Plainsong_ blaring in the background.

“Okay. Well? Did the date suck?”

“No, actually. It went really, really well.”

“So that’s why you’re laying in bed with the lights out having an existential crisis to the sound of Robert Smith mumbling love songs. Dude, that's my thing.”

“I… I don’t have the lights out.”

“I can see your bedroom window from where I'm sitting.”

You snap up in bed so that you can gesticulate, even though Stan is not present to see the emphatic nature of what you’re doing with your hands. It’s very convincing, the thing you’re doing with them, _and_ the thing you’re about to say.

“Stan. You don’t just _listen_ to ‘Disintegration’! You have to set a mood! You have to _revere_ it! It’s an _experience_!”

“An experience you just coincidentally decided to have immediately after getting home from a date you’ve been fretting about all week.”

“I wasn’t fretting.”

“Kyle, you’re always fretting. C’mon, just talk to me dude. What happened?”

You remain silent for a moment. From your computer speakers, the ephemeral atmosphere of _Plainsong_ dissolves into the ironic, upbeat chords of _Pictures of You_. God, this album really is a masterpiece. You’ve literally cried listening to it before, right after you met Robert Smith in real life and told him how much it rocked. How many people have gotten to help their musical hero save their hometown before? Your life isn’t all that bad, you guess. Weird, but not bad. Wow, was that a positive thought? It definitely was. You are _so_ not having an existential crisis.

You press your eyes shut and fall back into your mountain of pillows. Okay, so with this newfound positive outlook on life you can tell Stan the truth. It always feels good to tell Stan the truth. Eventually you’ll tell him the whole thing. “I… I don’t know. I just wasn’t feeling it, I guess.”

“Do you not like her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why’d you go out with her?”

“Because she really, really liked me? I mean, after all that shit that went down in North Park last month with Butters and the iPhone AI collective, it felt super shitty to at not at least give it a try.”

“Uh huh,” Stan replies. Stan has a way of saying _‘uh huh’_ that makes you feel like the biggest idiot in the world. In a loving way. Stan absolutely does not have his shit together, but he’s also kind of the wisest person you know. That _uh huh_ reflects back every stupid word you’ve said in this conversation. You grab one of your pillows out from beneath you and put it over your face.

“Why do I do that?” you mutter. “Why do I always go out of my way to do things for people even when I don’t want to?”

“So you can complain about it later?”

You snicker into the fabric of your pillow. It comes out all muffled and doesn’t sound much like a laugh at all. “Oh, thanks for that vote of confidence, Stan.”

“Dude, I’m serious. You don’t always have to be a fucking martyr about everything. Go into a date with an open mind for once?”

“I know I’m really in trouble when you start up-talking.”

You swear you can _hear_ Stan roll his eyes. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t be so terrible at relationships if you could be, y’know, positive? About the person you’re talking to? And not approach it like you're doing them a favor?”

You’re not exactly _terrible_ at it. You dated Heidi Turner for two whole years from ages ten to twelve and the breakup wasn’t even that bad. It’s just that it was about Cartman. Everything that ever happens in your shitty, podunk mountain town is _always_ about Cartman. You’re laying in bed despondently listening to your favorite album of all time because of fucking _Cartman_.

“I -”

Whatever you were about to say in your defense (or, conversely and horribly, about Stan and Wendy’s relationship) is interrupted by a sudden and insistent rapping at your window. The sound is familiar in a way that makes all your muscles clench up immediately. Fucking christ - why did you even dare to think about him? You should know better by now.

You tear the pillow away from your face and sit up to greet your unwanted midnight visitor. As if summoned from the ether, Cartman is pressed against the pane of your window with both his hands flat against the glass and a characteristically wild look in his eyes. You’ve played out this scenario so many times he must have fucking frequent flyer miles specifically for the fifteen foot trip between your father’s pepper garden and your bedroom.

“Kyle? Kyle, you still there?”

“I’m going to have to call you back,” you grit out between clenched teeth. Stan sighs, because he knows exactly what that tone of voice means at this time of night.

“Dude, just ignore him -”

“- always and at all times,” you agree, but you’re already stalking towards the window. “I know. I’ll be quick - I just need to give him a lil' shove. Maybe this time he’ll break his neck.”

“Kyle -”

“ _Bye_ , Stan.”

“That’s the opposite of ignoring, Kyle!”

“ _Bye. Stan_.”

Cartman starts pounding at the glass again. _“I know you see me, asshole!”_ He shouts through the window. This is why you’ve had a deadbolt on it for six years now. He always manages to find his way inside anyway.

You undo the lock and whip the window open so fast that the fucker topples face first onto the floor. You moved your bed away from the wall specifically for this reason, yet somehow he falls for it every time. “Motherfucker!” Cartman spits as he rolls onto his ass. You grin at the sight of him rubbing the heel of his hand against his lower lip. You think you see blood, which is nice. Making Cartman bleed never fails to cheer you up.

With control of the situation firmly in your hands, there’s only one thing left to take care of. You hitch up on tiptoes so that you can lean over Cartman’s fat fucking body and peer down into the darkness of your backyard.

Butters’s yellow hair is beacon-bright in the moonlight. He waves at you. “Hiya, Kyle!” he loudly whispers with a big, dumb, oblivious grin on his face. He’s holding the other end of the rope tied around Cartman’s waist. Some things never change.

“Go home, Butters!” you loudly whisper back.

“Gee, I’d love to on account that I’m not allowed to be out this late, but Eric said that -”

You slam the window shut. No one has time to listen to Butters, especially not at quarter after midnight. Cartman’s still eating shit on the floor, struggling to untie himself now that his makeshift pulley system is snagged in the window frame and riding up his ass. It takes him a whole minute to free himself and about another thirty seconds to stagger to his feet.

He’s wearing his warmest coat and the homeknit angora scarf-and-hat combo his mom made for him two Christmases ago when Stan’s dad got really into the luxury wool trade, which means that he intended to be outside in the cold for some time. Shockingly, he doesn’t instantaneously launch into whatever bullshit it is that brought him here tonight. Instead he adjusts the hem of his coat, sniffles, and just stares at you. 

You stare back. Shit, you hate having to be the first one to talk. He acts, you react - that’s the dynamic.

“So… you were _this_ insecure about me going on a date.”

Cartman snorts like he’s the one who should be offended. “Get over yourself, Kyle. Not everything is about you.”

“Really? I’d say that calling me thirty-seven times in one hour and then attempting to break into my room after midnight seems an awful lot like it’s about me.” Your voice is so brittle that you honest-to-god sound like your mom. Which is mortifying, but you can’t help it - you _do_ feel irrepressibly passive aggressive. 

“I wasn’t trying to break in. I was _politely_ knocking, which makes me a guest, so maybe you should be a little more hospitable. It's fucking freezing outside. Maybe offer me a blanket, a hot cocoa...”

“Seriously, how much _do_ you want to get your ass kicked tonight?”

“While I’m flattered at how desperately horny you are to fondle my balls at all times, Kyle, this visit is strictly business, not pleasure.”

“I am _not_ -”

“My stupid mom just got arrested,” he blurts out.

_What?_

“Wh-what?”

Now you notice it - a set to Cartman’s shoulders that is more than a bit defensive. He’s shaking a little, and definitely not because he’s cold. He has enough blubber on him to keep warm in the Antarctic Ocean. He’s very, very pale beneath the glow of your blue computer screen. Behind you, _Closedown_ starts playing.

“ _Not_ for being a whore, before you open your mouth to say I told you so -” he jabs you in the chest with a chubby finger.

“What?” you say again. 

Cartman puts his nose in the air and keeps explaining with the air of someone who’s probably at least low-key dissociating right now. The projector's on full IMAX. He's got that glint in his eyes, the one he gets where he's not really talking to you; he's talking to himself. “It was for _pimping_. So, y’know, at least she was the one laying down the bitch-slaps. I know what you’re thinking - that’s hella awesome. _‘Oh, Eric, I never knew your mom was soooo cool’_.”

“Yeah. That’s not even in the same universe as what I was thinking.”

“God, whatever! Butters already gave me the lecture about how pimping being -” Cartman holds up his hands to make quotation marks with his fingers. “ ‘Morally wrong’ was a lesson we all learned when we were nine, and I really don’t have time for one of your shitty speeches tonight, Kyle, so for once in your life try not to be a Fanny Fussypants and just help me out without busting my nuts about it.”

Well, that’s not going to be a problem, you think, because you’re absolutely speech _less_. Under the bluster, you can tell that Cartman is having a genuine emotion, and it’s not a good one. You put your hands on his shoulders just to stop him from trembling. You hate seeing that shit; you’re not great with vulnerability in general, and especially not from him. For some reason, seeing Cartman like this always makes you fold like a deck of cards. “Are… uh, are you okay?”

“O-of course I’m _okay_. Jesus christ, don’t be a pussy about this. If I’d wanted someone to cry all over me, I’d have gone to see Stan.” He rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t shrug out from under your grip. Actually, he leans into it when you begin to massage through the padded nylon of his jacket.

You slide your palms towards his face and let your thumbs push down the fabric of his scarf so that you can see the fading bruises on his neck. You did that. He wanted you to do that. It’s kind of your “thing”, you and him. The thing that you do instead of making out. For a moment, the two of you make deeply sincere eye contact. Then Cartman snorts and brushes past you. You turn to watch him pat down the underside of your desk and computer chair, as if he’s searching your room for listening devices. _Probably_ he doesn't think any are actually there. You know that he just likes to do shit with his hands.

“My place is teeming with friggin’ Pigs. I can’t let them catch me, so me and Butters are going to flee to Mexico and lay low for a couple months. I need to borrow some money.”

“Woah, wait - slow down dude. The police are after you?” You sound concerned when you say it, and you _are_ concerned. But you’re also thinking: _what the hell did you do this time?_ You have a brief internal struggle about whether or not it’s ethically permissible to allow Cartman to go to jail the same night that he’s been legally orphaned. Probably not, you decide.

“Fuck no. It’s even worse than that.” He clenches his fist dramatically and whispers the next part. “They want to send me to... _therapy_.”

_Oh._

You can’t believe you fell for it. You can’t believe you always fall for it. You don’t know what it is inside you that wants so badly for Eric Cartman to turn out to be human after all, but it’s been dragging behind you like a shadow for as long as you can remember.

“I’m _seriously_ \- if they think for one second I’m going to tolerate some nancy-pants liberal arts major prying around in _my_ head for ninety dollars an hour -”

Before he can get going, you stride across the room and pinch him beneath the ear. “ _Tsst!_ ”  


That shuts him up. He spins on his heel to glare at you. “Hey! What was that for!”

“Go to fucking therapy, fat ass!”

“No!” he shouts back. You slap both hands over his mouth.

“Don’t yell, moron. You’re going to wake up my whole family!”

“I’m not going to fucking therapy, Kyle!” he seethes through your fingers.

“Goddamnit, _yes_ you are.”

“No I’m _not_! Why should I!?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re fucking nuts? You’re a full on delusional narcissist. I’ve seen you dissociate multiple times just _this month_ , not to mention the crossdressing, and the Mitch Conner thing, and all that weird stuff you say about your Uncle when you’re sleeping.”

Cartman’s expression changes from furious to _mischievous_ , a kind of whiplash that only he can manage. He takes your hands and peels them off his face. He doesn’t let go. “Why _Kaaaaaahl_ ,” he practically purrs. “Are you worried about me?”

 _That’s_ what he got out of that? 

“No, I’m worried about _me_ , and every other human being on Earth who has even the slightest potential of ever interacting with you.”

“Hmmmm,” Cartman purses his lips. Like he’s just gotten a horrible idea. “I'm flattered, I really am. If it means that much to you… what will you give me if I do it?”

You knew it would come to this. It always comes to this. Cartman is an spoiled only child and doesn’t understand the very basic concept of doing something for its own sake. You sometimes wonder what he’d be liked if his mother had raised him with even a semblance of backbone. Like, he’d still be a sociopath, but maybe a productive, physically fit sociopath? Would you have ever even hung out with that person? Holy shit, would you have maybe _liked_ that person? It’s a horrible thought.

You take a deep breath and dig your nails into Cartman’s hands so hard that you hear him suck in a pained noise. When your mouth opens you realize you’re about to promise a degrading sexual favour in order to get a dude you despise to do something beneficial to his well-being. This is it: you’re acting like an uncharitable stereotype of someone’s conniving girlfriend. That’s where your evening, your week, your whole fucking miserable life has led you to. 

You shut your eyes and say, very softly. “Cartman. If you go to therapy I swear to you on my granma’s grave that I will suck your balls. I will get down on my knees and do whatever you want me to do down there. With your balls, I mean. In my mouth. That’s how serious I am about this.”

Cartman is quiet for a long enough time that you start to worry. Cartman being quiet is always a bad sign because - as you just so kindly elucidated - he’s a delusional narcissist and his thought processes always go spiralling off to insane places when left alone for too long.

“Not good enough,” he says finally.

You start breathing again. When did you stop breathing? “Are you kidding me?”

“Not even close, Kyle. Therapy goes against everything I believe in. If you want to use your feminine wiles to manipulate me into doing this, you’re going to have to promise me something _much_ more extraordinary than mere ball sucking.”

“Just state your terms, fat ass.” You’re squeezing your eyes shut so hard you’re beginning to see red. This is a hole you dug yourself. But it’s for the greater good.

“Let's see... what I want you to do iiiiiiiiiiiis…” Cartman drags the word out for several seconds, his voice getting kind of squeaky, like it used to be when you were kids. Shit, it’s gonna be something with pee, you just know it. “Kyle,” he murmurs. “If I go to therapy, _you_ have to marry me.”

You open your eyes. “What.” you say, for the third time tonight. This time it’s not a question, because there is no amount of explaining that can ever make the thing that just came out of Cartman’s mouth make sense.

“Not right away, obviously,” he continues breezily, swinging your entwined hands back and forth like you’re playing patty cake or something. “We’ll have to finish school first, of course. I mean, we’re not Stan and Wendy. You just _know_ Stan’s gonna knock her up the moment she finally opens her legs for him at the senior Winter Formal. And then he’s going to totally ruin their lives with a shotgun wedding. Poor, whipped, heterosexual sucker. _Luckily_ , we don’t have to worry about that, so if we get engaged now we can focus on our careers first. You can go to law school, or med school, or whatever suitably Jewish career it is your mom’s always on about. And I have plans to get into politics. It’s a bit of a departure from the rest of my political platform, but it’ll be easy enough for me to reverse Prop 69 when I’m Governor of Colorado and reinstate gay marriage. So I figure we can tie the knot by the time we’re thirty, in a small private ceremony in the Catskills. We can invite Stan and Wendy, but not Kenny. Fuck Kenny.”  


You pull your hands free so that you can throw them up in the air. “ _What_!?” you say some more, because you can’t think of any other response. Why the fuck has he put so much thought into this? You only kissed him _once_ , after much cajoling and against every inch of your better judgement.

He puts a hand over his heart and sighs. “I know, Kyle, it’s overwhelming to think about the future at such a young age. That’s why I’ve done all our thinking for us.”

“No, I mean _what the fuck_ are you even saying!? Why… why the hell do you think I would ever _marry_ you!?”

Cartman blinks. “Wh-wha… why…” his voice gets whiny. “Why _not_? We're obviously perfect for each other.”

“Uh, well, the first thing that comes to mind is that one time you tried to exterminate my people.”

Cartman says _pshaw_ and flops a hand at you. “Oh come on, Kyle. That was years ago. You know I’m way into Cultural Marxism now.”

“Cultural Marxism is literally an antisemitic myth, you retard.”

“Exactly. I’m basically a Jew now, so we’re a match made in _Sheol_.”

“ _Sheol_. Isn’t. A. _good_ thing!”

“Well, neither is saying ‘retard’ in the year 2024, but you don’t see me calling you out on your traumatizing microaggressions.”

You mash the flat of your palm into your forehead. There is a very particular place between your eyes that starts to throb when you get angry. You say things you don’t mean, and get into situations you can’t control. Like an avalanche of shit you’re helpless to stop even when you’re the person who threw the first stone. It’s safe to feel like this around Cartman, though, which is why you let him into your room whenever he comes knocking these days. It’s like squeezing a stress ball, or putting your fist through a wall. You excised each other from your lives once and the nightmares you have about what you did are _slightly_ worse than the ones you have about shit he’s done to you. It all evens out in the end.

“Where… did you even get this idea?” you ask, completely exasperated. “Is this some demented imprinting thing just because I’m the first person who’s ever touched your dick?”

“Could you be any more full of yourself, Kyle? You are so not the first person who’s touched my dick.” He puts a finger to his lip and considers this. “I’m pretty sure that was Ben Affleck, actually.”

“Oh my God. Sometimes I forget how fucked up you are.”

“ _However_!” Cartman removes the finger from his lip and starts tapping your cheek with it. “I know for certain that I’m the first person to have ever taken your repressed, uptight ass for a ride. Oh yes, that’s right…” His finger drags down your jawline and curls it under your chin. He tips your face up so that he can put _his_ face super close to yours. You’re fairly sure you know what he’s about to say, and you already really wish he wouldn’t phrase it that way.

He doesn’t say it right away, though. His breath washes over you in puffy, labored waves, giving the moment a cast that is, admittedly, extremely homoerotic. Despite how disgusting many of his personal habits are, Cartman’s breath always smells like Listerine. It’s almost more profane, somehow, that he’s so clean when you know he’s so filthy underneath. Isn’t that, like, a sociopath thing? Being abnormally, _unnaturally_ well groomed? You’ve seen him cleaning under his fingernails while prattling on about the explosive diarrhea he had the night before. He’s the only boy in your grade who carries a comb on his person. He eats nothing but ice cream cake and the skin off KFC drumsticks, but he uses $45 hair conditioner. Who does _any_ of these things, let alone a combination of them? You, like any normal sixteen year old boy, have never even _touched_ an emery board.  


Finally, he whispers the horrible, true-ish thing you don’t want to hear while The Cure’s iconic single _Lullaby_ plays in the background. “Kyle, I _took your virginity_.” 

“No.” you respond automatically.

"So according to Old Testament Law, which even Jews acknowledge, you're basically already my wife."

"No," you say, more emphatically this time.

He chuckles that weird, practiced chuckle of his. The one that sounds like he practiced off listening to James Bond villains. “We were both there, Kyle. Deny it all you want, but you can’t lie to me!”

“No, I mean - _augh_!” You put your hands on Cartman’s chest, but don’t _quite_ push away. Tweek once confessed to you that Craig said to him that he thinks you’re a total “ _tsundere_ ”. Was this what he meant? Honestly, that would probably be the weirdest thing anyone's ever said about you if you didn't ceaselessly expose yourself to Cartman, who says weirder things about you at least twice a week.

What an absolutely stupid thing to be thinking about. You rephrase what you meant when you said _“no!”_. “Look, I’m pretty sure that what we _do_ , in terms of the dude-code, doesn’t even count as sex.”

Cartman frowns. “Then what is it?”

“I… I dunno. Like… bro jobs?” A thing that your father once agonizingly explained to you while drunk. You couldn’t look Mr. Marsh in the face for weeks.

“And… choking?” Cartman says, like that’s the part that makes it romantic. Shit, he probably does think that’s the part that makes it romantic.

“A-and choking, yes. Bro.... choking...” What are you saying? You’re not bros. You’re not even frenemies. You guess that you could call it hate-fucking - or, more accurately, hate-mutual-masturbation - but that would require considerably more resistance on Cartman’s end. Dammnit, he really does ruin _everything_.

Cartman scoffs and pulls back a couple inches. “You know, Kyle, if I wanted no-strings-attached domming, my mom had plenty of numbers I could have called instead. You aren’t _that_ good at it.”

The noise of frustration that broils up from your throat is raw and primal. “I can’t believe I’m actually entertaining this conversation.” You jerk free from his clammy, weirdly tender grasp and shove your hand in your pocket to get your phone. “Look, if you won’t agree to this willingly, I’ll just call the cops and -”

“Oh no you don’t, you sneaky _rat_!”

Cartman dives for your phone but you leap back and easily swipe it out of his reach, laughing the whole time. You can admit it - you’re gloating a little. “Ah HA! I knew you couldn’t resist slinging a racial slur! You never fucking change!” 

Cartman lunges for the phone again, but you shove a hand in his face to push him away. He’s taller than you, but he’s got stubby arms on account of being so goddamn fat.

“C’moooon, I didn’t say that you were a sneaky _Jew_ rat! I said you were a sneaky rat - of ambiguous religious denomination! Babe, give me a break here!”

“ _Sneaky. Rat_ ,” you grind out, dialing one-handed “Is _literally antisemitic imagery_ , you fat fucking pig fucking ass-licking total fucking _retard_!”

You weren’t watching how shrill you got, and you do have a tendency to get kind of _shrill_. Although to be fair, Cartman didn’t hear the knocking either, so it’s a real surprise to everyone when on _‘retard’_ , your bedroom door creaks open and light pours in from the hall.

You both freeze and stare - deer in headlights - at Ike, who is illuminated by the lamp on the other side of the hallway and wearing an expression that can only be described as: gaping, in admittedly mild shock. _Fuck_. You really hope that your little brother didn’t hear Cartman call you “babe”.

“Uhhhhhh,” Ike says.

“Hello Isaac,” Cartman replies, hands still fisted in the fabric of your shirt. “How are you this fine evening?”

Ike ignores him. “Kyle, mom sent me to get you. She says that the police are on the phone. They’re looking, uh… for your _“friend”_ Eric Cartman. Who is here, apparently. In our house. Like always. With the police looking for him. And your faces really close together. That’s totally cool and normal and not weird at all.”

“Please don’t tell mom,” you beg. “He was just leaving.”

“What!? No I wasn’t.”

“ _Yes_ you were.” With considerable effort, you spin him around and begin shoving his girth back towards where he came from. You have to put your back into it, because he’s certainly not helping you out.

That’s when Butters’s voice wafts up from the backyard. “Eric! _Eric_! You’d b-better get down right now! The Po-po are here and they’re lookin’ mighty p-pissed at you!” 

A burst of sirens echos down the street, drowning out both the sound of your digital music player and the thrum of your pulse throbbing behind your ears. As the room fills with blue and red light you can’t help but wonder what Stan’s thinking, one house over, and you hate yourself a little for not internalizing his sage advice.

Cartman’s leaning his back into you, like when a dog pushes up against a person’s legs seeking comfort. You give it to him, by not moving or reacting or doing anything at all. You are so grounded. The fact that Butters will be inevitably even _more_ grounded gives you absolutely no solace.

“Fuuuuuuuu _uuuuuUUUUUUUCK_ ,” Cartman says.

“Y-yeah,” you can’t help but agree. Well, there’s a first time for everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story isn't going necessarily where it looks like it's going. I promise the second-person narration has function as a literary device beyond being a pretentious way of doing first-person.


	2. Cartman's Silly Dialectical Behavioral Therapy 2024

_One year ago you were standing ankle deep in the snow on the Canadian border, watching ash rain from the sky. This wasn’t exactly a unique experience, the political climate being what it’s been for the past seven years, but you’ve sort of got hang ups about watching things burn in Canada. You had a terrible headache that week. For the entire week. You’ve been getting those since you hit puberty, so bad that it makes your eyesight splinter out sometimes. So bad that you don’t actually remember everything that happened that week. The Colorado government said some things. You said some things. Cartman said some things. You said some more things. Stan checked out around then and four days later you were out in the middle of nowhere watching an Amazon sponsored oil-pipeline burning for miles along the horizon._

_A few things come back to you in crisp, vibrant flashes of sense and emotion: catching an ember in the palm of your hand, raking in a cold breath that hurt on the way down, being really concerned about the way tech corporations were increasingly wielding the kind of power that should definitely be reserved for governments, and Cartman saying something absolutely evil just three inches from your fucking ear._

_You don’t even remember the specific evil thing he said. In your memory it just plays out like some Dumb Generic Cartman Insensitivity like_ “I always knew Justin Trudeau was a fucking pussy” or “Well now that that’s all over with I can’t wait to go home and play XBox”. _Every time you think about this night, he’s saying something different, and you know none of them are accurate because nothing you can conjure up from your imagination is bad enough to warrant the fact that whatever it was he said right then made you honest to God want to fucking kill him for a full fucking minute._

_Without pausing to think, or even turning around, you slammed your elbow into his gut and three seconds later the two of you were rolling around in the snow: a mess of clumsy limbs, fingers going into noses and you being the one to get in a few good hits. You know how to use Cartman’s weight against him. You’d known that for years at that point, like second nature, so it was pretty goddamn easy to pin him down and just start wailing on him. You’d hit Cartman pretty bad in the past, but not like this. The first time you pulled back, his split lip was wibbling like he was already crying and he looked sincerely afraid for his life._

_Well, at the time you thought it was fear. It wasn’t though. Not all of it. Because the part you very clearly, awfully and explicitly remember is rearing back to punch him in the face a fourth time and feeling what was unmistakably an erection jabbing into your inner thigh._

_There are any number of reactions a fifteen year old boy can have to an opponent popping a boner during a fistfight. The polite thing to do would have been to ignore it and continue to beat him unconscious. Your life would be pretty different if you’d just followed through on that plan._

_Instead, your reaction was to grab two fistfulls of his coat and shake him so hard his head bounced off the ground. “Do you fucking like this!?”_

_“S-seriously, Kyle -” he coughed, and a bubble of blood frothed out from between his teeth. “I-it’s a natural… physical reaction. Haven’t you ev-ver watched an MMA f-fight? They’re always popping boners all over the pla -”_

_You slammed your forearm into his jugular. “I asked you a question: do you. Fucking. Like this!?”_

_You just wanted him to stop talking, but then he had this weird fucking reaction. His body twitched. His eyes went wide - panicked confusion and something a little like awe. Like he was pacified. That’s the part that made you, experimentally, push a little harder. Pushing harder made him buck into you - a bit of a desperate auto-response. Seriously fucking pathetic. He couldn’t even moan because you were crushing down on his air passages. So you let him breathe a little, just enough so that when you pressed down a second time his reaction was even more lurid. You remember that there was blood running down his face and snowflakes caught in his eyelashes._

_At any time you - responsible, good-hearted, right-headed Kyle Broflovski - could have stopped it. But you were drawn in: like gravity. Like falling off a cliff. Like a shit avalanche after the first stone’s already been thrown. This wasn’t just a thing you could put back in a box; it was something you’d both always instinctually known about each other. And really, really - if it’d truly repulsed you, you could have just stopped. At any point between the first time he said something really weird to you and the point where you let him nut against your thigh while struggling to breathe._

_You later told Cartman that the noise that came out of him was like a dying pig, because admitting that it was kind of hot felt like letting him win._ What part of it was hot!? _you’ve asked yourself multiple times since, like you’re on trial. The violence? The control? That fact that it was Eric Cartman that these things were being enacted upon? The way that he stared at you with this incredibly messed up combination of starry eyed adoration and mortal terror? Thank fuck that there is no one else in the world who makes you feel that way._

_“You better not tell anyone about this.”_

_“Oh yeah, I’m totally stoked to go to school next week and tell everyone: ‘hey, I let Kyle choke me out like a little bitch and then I came in my pants from it’.”_

_“Somehow I didn’t think that’s how you would tell the story.”_

_Snow against your back, the moon a hazy circle behind the clouds, blood flaking off your fist. Your headache was finally gone. You shut your eyes and listened to Cartman breathe fatly beside you. There was something strangely peaceful about it. Like the calm after a storm._

_Until Cartman said: “Your chokehold could use work. It feels like I just got LAPD’ed by a six year old girl.”_

_“Cartman. Shut the fuck up.”_

“Hello?”

“Uh, hey Heidi. It’s Kyle. How are you doing?”

“Hmm… better than you by the sound of it. What’s wrong?”

“Wha -? N-nothing! Nothing’s wrong! 

“C’mon, Kyle, you only call me when something’s wrong. Which is such a _guy_ thing to do, by the way. Calling the only girl in their life to talk about their feelings, I mean.”

The walls in Hell’s Pass hospital have flaking paint all the way down the hallway. You shove your thumb nail beneath a chunk and flick it off. God, this town sucks so bad. Heidi’s lucky she got out early on that fancy science scholarship of hers.

“Yeah, it is. Sorry…”

“You’re lucky that girls actually think that kind of thing is pretty cute. At least you can talk about your feelings, which is better than most guys I’ve dated.”

You say nothing back to that one. There’s a whole weird tangle of subtext and implication beneath that statement and you’re about to blow it the fuck open. You and Heidi have a history that is both sweet and kind of problematic. A lot of your relationships are like that.

“So. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Deep breaths. “Look, I know you probably never want to hear about… _Eric_ again in your life -”

“Oh, God, don’t do that.”

“Talk about him?”

“No. Call him Eric. It sounds… so _wrong_ , especially coming from you.”

You have to admit, a chill ran through you like someone walking over your grave when you said it. “Yeah, I have no idea what the fuck I was thinking there.”

“You were thinking that something really serious has finally happened with him and so you were feeling guilty about the intentional depersonalisation of calling someone by their last name.”

“Wow. You got all that from me _graciously_ refraining from calling Cartman ‘fat ass’.”

“No offense, but neither of you are as deep as you think you are, and I got an unfortunate dose of front seat insight into both of your psyches over the years.” She sighs, then asks: “what did he do this time?”

“He didn’t do anything." Hasn’t done anything for… for about a year now, actually. What a fucking _coincidence_. “His mom got arrested.”

“Liane? Oh my god, that’s horrible! She’s such a sweet lady…”

 _Really?_ “Heidi, she was a pimp.”

“So?”

“So? S-so!? Shouldn’t you, y’know, being a girl and all, have some serious with prostitution as an institution? I think of all people, Mrs. Cartman should have known better than to exploit other women.”

“Hmm. Do you really think that’s what was going on, Kyle?” Heidi asks, almost condescendingly, in her very soft voice.

“Uh… yeah, Heidi, I do.”

“Well, I’m not so sure.” You can hear cars rushing by behind her voice. Feet crunching through slush puddles. “As long as we have prostitution, isn't it better if the business aspect of hooking is in the hands of other women? It’s not perfect, but it’s a humane solution until prostitution is legalized and de-stigmatized. Which is probably not going to happen anytime soon, the political climate being what it is.”

Your nail goes under another chip of paint. Dig, flick, dig flick. “Huh. I’d never thought about it that way…”

“I know you didn’t. You were just being self-righteous on autopilot because you're upset. I also know that you didn’t call just to tell me that.”

Your nail burrows under a piece of plaster by accident. It doesn’t come free when you push. Instead, your thumb skids under the wall layer and gets cut on an edge of metal. You hiss a curse and suck the blood off the wound.

“Kyle?”

“Okay. Look, I can’t talk to Stan or Kenny about this for reasons that will soon become obvious. And what I’m about to say sounds absolutely nuts, so don’t laugh.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Before the police came to get him, Cartman came to my house.”

“Uh huh.”

“So we got into an argument -”

“Sounds like a normal Saturday night for you.”

“ _Heidi_.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

You squeeze the cut on your thumb so that the blood beads out. “So, okay... Cartman: his insane idea of settling this argument was… to ask me to marry him.” Heidi doesn’t react appropriately. Which is to say: she does not express surprise, or any other emotion. She says nothing, so you keep going; “Can you believe that!? Like, he straight up had this whole delusional rant about how he’d planned our entire lives out, and something about reversing the recent ruling on gay marriage specifically so we can honeymoon together in the Catskills… it was fucking weird, Heidi - this was not your standard Cartman improvisation. He’d put thought into this. Enough that I’d bet money he’s got a detailed flowchart hung up somewhere in his basement laying the whole thing out. Jesus, Butters probably knows about this. There’s so many layers to it that I just can’t wrap my head around! Where did he even get such a fuck-awful idea in the first place!?”

Heidi is silent on the line for a worryingly long time. Long enough that you’d suspect she was covering the receiver on her cell so that she could politely laugh at you in private. Except you can still hear the garbage east coast weather happening on the other end of the line: sleet bouncing off cartops, the static of skyway cars slicing through ice above. Heidi’s standing near a crosswalk, one of the ones you only see in big, cosmopolitan cities - with the electronic bell that chimes when the light changes. What she says after a few minutes of contemplation is: “Are you and Eric dating, Kyle?”

“ _What_? No! Why would you even ask that?”

“Okay. Are you fucking him then?”

“Noooo…t -” you gently smack your forehead against the wall. “- exactly.” 

“Well, there you go. Eric is the type to overinterpret things, especially when it comes to you.”

 _Wait_. “Wait. Why… why was us _fucking_ the first conclusion you jumped to?”

“It was the second actually.”

“Uh, yeah - I think that at our age, ‘dating’ implies _some_ kind of sexual contact. You were just trying to be polite about calling me the fuck out.” You add: “which I appreciate, by the way.”

“Well… was I wrong?”

“ _Not exactly_. But... why?” _How fucking obvious are we_?

Heidi hesitates before answering. You can hear her breath speed up as she jogs through a puddle and sweeps in through what sounds like an automatic door. The noise from the sleet and the street stops abruptly.

When she speaks, it’s quiet. Private. “You know, it was hard for me to be so messed up by a relationship at such a young age. Most girls wait until they’re at least old enough to get sex out of it to completely isolate themselves and change their personality over some guy. Even afterwards, none of my girlfriends really understood what’d I’d been through, or my new outlook on life. That’s one of the things that drew me to you a second time, Kyle: I thought you understood what it was like to be scarred by someone you were close to, and what it was to feel stronger for having had that wound. But after a while I realized that you didn’t look at your relationship with Eric like that at all.”

You don’t really have a response for any of that. It’s candid in a shocking way she’d never been when you two were eleven year olds playacting at teen-dating. Of course, you knew that about her, but it’d never occurred to you that she looked at you that way in turn: like Cartman had hurt you the way he hurt her. In a way that irrevocably changed your personality.

“When did you realize that?”

She laughs - soft, but sincere. “Well. That time you stood me up at the sixth grade Prom because you were dragging Butters all over Seattle trying to figure why Eric had taken the week off school.”

Oh God... you’ve already apologized for this. Two times, exactly: once before she broke up with you, and once more when you became friends again just before she moved away.

 _In your defense_ : “I thought he was up to something.”

“Was he?”

“No.” He’d been on a ‘ _Fifty Shades of Grey’_ novelty tour, of all things, with his mother and cousin. “But, I mean… he’s usually up to something. You can’t blame me for thinking that.”

“That’s true. But what I don’t understand is… why is it always your responsibility?”

Your mouth rushes to form the words _‘It’s not’_ , but they get strangled to death in your throat because, because, because - it is. What kind of person would you be if you - knowing how he is, with the history that you have with him - just let Cartman do whatever he wants? So you can't just... you _can't -_

“I learned something important about myself from Eric Cartman,” Heidi continues, her voice whipping light. “From why I liked him in the first place. From why I let him do to me what he did to me. But that was all a very long time ago, Kyle. When I decided I was done with him, I erased him from my world as completely as I could. I think that you could learn something valuable about yourself as well if you’d only consider why you _don’t_.”

She hangs up on you. Not in a bitchy way. It’s like putting a period on the end of a sentence; there’s nothing left to say. She’s 100% right.

You stare at the ceiling for a few minutes. The lights make your vision go out of focus and you’re hit by a dizzy spell so intense you nearly keel over. When you reach out to steady yourself against the wall, your thumb leaves a streak of blood behind.

**INTERVIEW WITH STANLEY MARSH, AGE 17. 4:45pm, SUNDAY 10, NOV, 2024  
**  
Conducted by: Doctor Susan Pradesh, Resident Psychologist

DR PRADESH: Hello Stan. How are you this evening?  
S MARSH: Uh, to be honest, not great?  
DR PRADESH: Of course. This all must be very dramatic and upsetting for you boys.  
S MARSH: Ehhh. [NOTES: _subject makes a gesture with his hand, indicating that the “drama” of this incident is, in fact, only middling_ ]  
DR PRADESH: Do you know why you’re here, Stan?  
S MARSH: Cartman, right?  
DR PRADESH: Yes. You’ve been called in to speak on behalf of your classmate, Eric Cartman.  
S MARSH: Oh God. What’s he done?  
DR PRADESH: Done?  
S MARSH: Yeah, like... to the orderlies. Or the head Doctor. He’s been in here for over twelve hours, right? That’s more than enough time for him to ruin someone’s life.  
DR PRADESH: Actually, Eric has been extremely well behaved, especially considering the circumstances under which he was admitted.  
DR PRADESH: I’d go as far to say that thus far, Eric has been a model patient.  
S MARSH: (muttering to self) Jesus Christ, “Eric”.  
DR PRADESH: I’m sorry, what was that?  
S MARSH: Oh. Nothing.  
S MARSH: ... [NOTES: _subject has been looking at the clock, fiddling with his hat, staring at the ceiling. Avoiding all eye contact_.]  
DR PRADESH: You seem uncomfortable Mr Marsh.  
DR PRADESH: Is something the matter?  
S MARSH: ...  
S MARSH: [ _subject sighs_ ]  
S MARSH: Okay, don’t take this personally, but I don’t exactly... believe in psychology.  
S MARSH: I think it’s a bunch of shit.  
DR PRADESH: I see.  
DR PRADESH: Why do you feel that way?  
S MARSH: I just... think that bad feelings are as important as the good ones, and pushing them aside and trying to repress them leads to more trouble down the road, and therapy is like putting a band-aid over that. In fact, I think that it’s part of the reason that the political situation is the way it is right now.  
DR PRADESH: ...  
S MARSH: Uh, not psychology specifically.  
S MARSH: But like... the general... mindset that I just... described.  
DR PRADESH: Actually, I agree completely.  
DR PRADESH: The suppression of animosity and negative thought processes can lead to all kinds of psychological problems and toxic behavior later in life.  
DR PRADESH: Which is why I think it’s better that we talk about them in a safe and comfortable environment before it’s too late.  
DR PRADESH: And, Stan - that is the point of therapy.  
S MARSH: Ugh.  
S MARSH: See - that’s what I’m talking about! It’s so manipulative!  
S MARSH: It’s like doing a cold reading. You just throw a bunch of shit out and fish around for an opening and then you act like you’ve made a genuine observation when all you’re doing is reflecting what I said back at me!  
DR PRADESH: Stan, have you gone to therapy before?  
S MARSH: ... m-maybe?  
DR PRADESH: Of course.  
DR PRADESH: I see in you a sensitive young man who has a surprising amount of self awareness for your age.  
DR PRADESH: It’s natural for someone like you to be skeptical about the benefits of therapy, so I’ll be honest with you. You’re correct that there is an element of manipulation in the process. But manipulation is a tool like anything else: it can be used productively and positively in the right hands.  
S MARSH: ...  
DR PRADESH: You’re entitled to your opinion, of course. You don’t have to share anything you’d be uncomfortable sharing. But this isn’t about you.  
DR PRADESH: It’s about your friend, Eric.  
S MARSH: Yeah.  
S MARSH: So - why the hell are we even here? I can promise you, I am absolutely not involved in any of his bullshit.  
DR PRADESH: Reaching out to friends and family is not uncommon when a minor is sectioned.  
DR PRADESH: As for Eric Cartman... his only family in the town is his mother, who is currently being processed at the county police station in Middle Park.  
DR PRADESH: She named Eric’s “four best friends” - you, Kenneth McCormick, Kyle Broflovski and Leopold Stotch - to speak in her place.  
DR PRADESH: You can choose to stay silent and this interview will end immediately, but considering the circumstances, I really do think that he needs someone to advocate for him.  
S MARSH: Hn. I have a hard time believing he’s not been “advocating” for himself.  
DR PRADESH: As I mentioned before, Eric has been on best behavior since being admitted. However he has not been terribly forthcoming with information regarding his state of mind, or what his home life is like.  
DR PRADESH: Which is completely understandable with the trauma of what he’s just gone through.  
S MARSH: Oh my god, he’s going to eat you alive...  
DR PRADESH: How so?  
S MARSH: Look - it’s difficult to explain if you don’t know how he is.  
S MARSH: If you’re not careful, it’s going to be a whole... thing.  
S MARSH: It always is with him.  
DR PRADESH: I’m confused. I was told that you were one of Eric’s closest friends.  
S MARSH: Yeah.  
DR PRADESH: I see. It doesn’t seem as if... you like him very much.  
S MARSH: No. I fucking hate his guts.  
DR PRADESH: But you’re... one of his best friends?  
S MARSH: Yeah.  
DR PRADESH: Interesting.  
S MARSH: See, that’s what I mean about it being a whole “thing”.  
DR PRADESH: Would you like to expand on what you mean by the phrase: “whole” “thing”.  
S MARSH: Not really.  
S MARSH: I mean, I could, but then we’d be here all night and I kinda didn’t sleep.  
DR PRADESH: That’s right. You were there when Eric was apprehended by the police.  
DR PRADESH: Why don’t you tell me about that?  
S MARSH: There’s not much to tell.  
S MARSH: It’s not like this is the first time I’ve seen Cartman get arrested.  
S MARSH: Although usually we just deal with the local cops we already know - those Middle Park assholes really mean business. I like seeing Cartman get his just desserts as much as the next person, but I don’t think it was necessary to go to town on him the way they did. It’s not like he can run that fast with how fat he is.  
DR PRADESH: So you don’t think he deserved it?  
S MARSH: Well, like _cosmically_ , maybe.  
S MARSH: But he’s kind of been... subdued lately, I guess. It’s been... geeze, fucking months since he’s done anything really crazy.  
DR PRADESH: “Crazy”.  
S MARSH: Oh god, please tell me you aren’t going to hit me with some political correctness bullshit about how ‘crazy’ is a triggering word now.  
DR PRADESH: No, of course not. Actually, I would call it an interesting word choice, not a triggering one.  
DR PRADESH: A “whole thing” is “something crazy”. I see.  
S MARSH: Look, don’t overanalyze it. Like I said - I don’t involve myself in Cartman’s bullshit anymore. We play video games together, talk shit at school together, that kind of stuff. The moment anything starts to look like a scheme, I’m out. I don’t have energy for that crap anymore.  
S MARSH: The only reason I talked to the police at all is because I couldn’t let Kyle face that alone.  
DR PRADESH: Kyle.  
S MARSH: Yeah. He’s my best friend.  
S MARSH: Also, he lives next door so when Cartman starts shit at his place - which he kind of does a lot - it’s pretty hard to ignore.  
DR PRADESH: I see.  
S MARSH: Anyway, are we finished here?  
DR PRADESH: Not quite.  
DR PRADESH: There’s still a few more things I’d like to ask you about.  
DR PRADESH: If that’s okay with you, of course.  
S MARSH: [ _sighs_ ] Yeah, whatever.  
DR PRADESH: I’ve learned quite a bit about Eric’s school friends, however there was one subject he seemed especially evasive about.  
S MARSH: Uh huh.  
DR PRADESH: Does Eric have a girlfriend.  
DR PRADESH: Or... maybe a boyfriend?  
S MARSH: Oh _man_. I’m... look, I’m not gonna touch that one with a ten foot pole. Can we talk about something else? _Anything_ else? Please?  
DR PRADESH: Hmm.  
DR PRADESH: Okay, Stan.  
DR PRADESH: In that case, why don’t you tell me more about your friend Kyle.

**INTERVIEW: KENNETH MCCORMICK, AGE 16. 6:52pm, SUNDAY 10, NOV, 2024**

DR PRADESH: : So. You’re Eric’s best friend?  
K MCCORMICK: ....  
K MCCORMICK: .......  
K MCCORMICK: ..............  
K MCCORMICK: Is that what he said about me?  
DR PRADESH: : Actually, the exact words he used were: ‘Super Best Friends’.  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
K MCCORMICK: Huh.  
DR PRADESH: : Mr. McCormick?  
K MCCORMICK: I guess I’m his best friend then.  
DR PRADESH: : I see.  
DR PRADESH: How long have you two been... “best friends”?  
K MCCORMICK: [NOTES: _here subject shrugs. Looks at his hands, picks something off his coat. It takes him several seconds to answer each question. His silence seems thoughtful, not pensive._ ]  
DR PRADESH: You don’t remember?  
K MCCORMICK: We live on the same street.  
DR PRADESH: And?  
K MCCORMICK: You’re not from around here, are you?  
DR PRADESH: No. I’m from Denver, actually. I studied psychology in Washington State.  
K MCCORMICK: Yeah, so around here whoever lives on your street are your best friends for life.  
DR PRADESH: Whether or not you actually like them, it seems.  
K MCCORMICK: [NOTES: _another long silence_.]  
DR PRADESH: Do you... like him at all? You must care about him to some extent if you were willing to come out here to Hell’s Pass on a Sunday evening.  
DR PRADESH: And it seems from my reports that Eric is very popular at school.  
K MCCORMICK: Eric makes shit happen.  
K MCCORMICK: I mean... he’s a fat, spoiled, selfish, hateful asshole, but there’s never a dull moment.  
K MCCORMICK: And, well...  
DR PRADESH: Yes?  
K MCCORMICK: We sort have this weird... bond. Me and him, I mean. I can’t explain it.  
DR PRADESH: Give it a try.  
K MCCORMICK: No, I mean I literally can’t explain it. You wouldn’t believe me, and then I’d be the next one locked up in here.  
DR PRADESH: Interesting.  
DR PRADESH: Would you describe the bond as... platonic? Or something... more?  
K MCCORMICK: Is it... what?  
K MCCORMICK: Wait, do you think -  
K MCCORMICK: ... .................  
K MCCORMICK: [NOTES: _subject begins laughing_ ]  
DR PRADESH: ...  


**[NOTES: _laughter continues for some time. Fast forward through this part, timestamp 11:32_ ]**

DR PRADESH: Um, are you alright, Mr. McCormick?  
K MCCORMICK: Oh man, oh man - you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree there, lady.  
K MCCORMICK: I mean, not that I wouldn’t fuck a dude. I would totally fuck a dude.  
K MCCORMICK: But I would NOT fuck Eric Cartman  
DR PRADESH: But you know who would.  
K MCCORMICK: [NOTES: _silent for a while. Playing with his hands. Not anxiously_.]  
DR PRADESH: I’m sorry if that question was over over the line.  
K MCCORMICK: [ _subject lets out a long whistle_ ] Hoo boy.  
K MCCORMICK: That shit’s like opening Pandora’s Box.  
K MCCORMICK: I’m no snitch, but I’ll say this: don’t stare into the abyss if you don’t want it to stare back at you.  
K MCCORMICK: And, y’know, curse you with mental images you can’t get rid of even if you pour bleach in your eyes.  
K MCCORMICK: I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.  
DR PRADESH: Hmm.  
DR PRADESH: It seems despite your stated ambivalence, you have a very intense loyalty to Eric.  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
DR PRADESH: But it’s not just Eric you’re loyal to.  
DR PRADESH: Both Stan and Leopold spoke very highly of you as someone who would go to great lengths to protect the people close to you.  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
DR PRADESH: In fact, Mr. Marsh’s exact words were: “You aren’t gonna get shit out of Kenny.” Leopold described you as: “the only self-respecting person in this whole town”.  
K MCCORMICK: ...  
DR PRADESH: So it occurs to me that it’s not just Eric you’re trying to protect.  
K MCCORMICK: ............  
DR PRADESH: ...  
K MCCORMICK: ........................  
DR PRADESH: ...  
K MCCORMICK: .................................  
DR PRADESH: ...  
K MCCORMICK: .....................................................................  
DR PRADESH: ...  
DR PRADESH: Forgive me for saying this, but for a group of teenagers, you boys really have an unusual dynamic.  
DR PRADESH: I’m just trying to wrap my head around it so that we can help Eric as best we can, which - if what I’ve heard so far is all true - is not solely for his benefit.  
DR PRADESH: So I’d like it if you’d help me understand, Kenny: what it is about him that holds such a sway over your friend group despite how much you all seem to despise him.  
K MCCORMICK: [ _long exhale_ ]  
K MCCORMICK: Like I said: you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.  
K MCCORMICK: _Any_ of it.  


DR PRADESH: Okay, Stan.  
DR PRADESH: In that case, why don’t you tell me more about your friend Kyle...  
S MARSH: Why? You wanna be his therapist too?  
DR PRADESH: Do you think Kyle needs a therapist?  
S MARSH: I - wow. Uh.  
S MARSH: I mean, don’t tell him I said this, but kind of yeah?  
DR PRADESH: Even though you don’t believe in therapy yourself?  
S MARSH: Well, _I_ don’t - but I’m pretty sure he does. So it might be good for him, right?  
DR PRADESH: Why do you think that your friend Kyle needs therapy?  
S MARSH: Dude, Kyle’s my best friend. I’m not... I’m not gonna talk about him behind his back.  
DR PRADESH: Whatever you say to me in this room will remain entirely confidential.  
S MARSH: God, [ _muttering_ ] you keep fucking doing that -  
S MARSH: Look, I’m only telling you this because I don’t want you being all weird when you talk to him later.  
S MARSH: It’s nothing serious - I just think that the, y’know, _political situation’s_ been getting to him.  
S MARSH: He always used to be so idealistic. Like, he really, honestly believed that people were ultimately good deep down. The last seven years... it’s been like watching the life slowly drain from him.  
DR PRADESH: That’s a very common problem in this country these days.  
S MARSH: I bet.  
S MARSH: But it’s even worse for him. You... uh, you know that the President was our -

****

** [NOTE: the next five minutes of audio have been REDACTED with consideration to the Department of Homeland Security]**

****

S MARSH: Did Cart - I mean Eric -  
S MARSH: Did he say anything about Kyle?  
DR PRADESH: As I just explained, anything said in this room is subject to Doctor-Patient Confidentiality. I can’t tell you what Eric said about any of you, just as I am not authorized to tell him anything you’ve said during the course of this conversation either.  
S MARSH: Oh.  
DR PRADESH: What is it that you think Eric would say about Kyle?  
S MARSH: I dunno. Just... y’know. Stuff.  
DR PRADESH: Good “stuff”? Or bad “stuff”?  
S MARSH: Jesus Christ, don’t start it with the baby talk.  
S MARSH: ...  
S MARSH: Okay, so - Kyle and Cartman... they have, like, a “thing”.  
DR PRADESH: A “thing”. Like... a “whole thing”?  
S MARSH: No! Well, _yes_. But not like...  
S MARSH: Whatever you’re thinking, not like that.  
DR PRADESH: I’m not thinking anything.  
S MARSH: Yes you are, don’t do that.  
S MARSH: [ _sighs_ ]  
S MARSH: They fight a lot, and not like how dudes usually give each other shit. It’s more serious than that. So I don’t want _Eric_ poisoning you against him.  
S MARSH: Whatever he said about Kyle, you should probably take with, like, eight thousand tons of salt.  
S MARSH: In fact, don’t trust anything he says. About anything ever.  
DR PRADESH: Noted.  
S MARSH: Kyle’s a great guy, okay. He just gets kind of... _worked up_ about stuff sometimes. But it’s because he sincerely cares. I don’t think there’s a person on Earth who cares about shit more than he does.  
S MARSH: Whatever you’ve heard about him... just keep that in mind.  
DR PRADESH: I haven’t heard anything about Kyle except what you’ve told me here.  
S MARSH: Oh, uh...  
S MARSH: That’s... cool. Why don't we forget everything I just said.  
DR PRADESH: If that's what you want  
S MARSH: Are we done now?  
DR PRADESH: I just have a few more questions about people in Eric’s life who he’s mentioned, but not been particularly forthcoming about.  
DR PRADESH: Is that okay with you?  
DR PRADESH: I promise that I won’t spring any more questions about your _best friends_ on you.  
S MARSH: Uh. Sure - shoot.  
DR PRADESH: Okay - first up: who is... Mitch Conner?  
S MARSH: ...  
S MARSH: [ _subject slumps in his seat and pinches the bridge of his nose._ ]  
S MARSH: Jesus fucking Christ.  


**INTERVIEW: KYLE BROFLOVSKI, AGE 16. 7:44pm, SUNDAY 10, NOV, 2024**

DR PRADESH: Kyle, do you know why you’re here?  
K BROFLOVSKI: [ _subject snorts_ ] Yeah. Why else? It’s Cartman. It’s always about Cartman.  
DR PRADESH: That does seem to be the impression I’m getting.  
K BROFLOVSKI: How’s he doing anyway?  
K BROFLOVSKI: Those Middle Park cops hit him pretty hard.  
DR PRADESH: He’s concussed, but it’s not serious.  
DR PRADESH: Hmm.  
K BROFLOVSKI: ... why are you looking at me like that?  
DR PRADESH: You’re the only one I’ve spoken to so far who has expressed concern for Eric’s current condition and well being.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Don’t get me wrong.  
K BROFLOVSKI: I can’t stand him either.  
K BROFLOVSKI: I just want to make sure he gets the treatment he needs. For everyone’s sake - not just his. Or mine for that matter.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Cartman has no interest in changing himself. If you give him even an inch of sympathy he’s going to take advantage of you. He’s absolutely ruthless, but he can’t take what he dishes out.  
K BROFLOVSKI: He’s a manipulative asshole, but he’s also impatient. If you wait him out he’ll fall apart completely no matter how meticulous a web he’s weaved. He rarely has a contingency plan that can survive an honest blow to the ego, and if he _does_ manage to pull together a Plan B, he can still be easily controlled with food. Don’t be afraid to use some of the more controversial techniques in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I’ve been lowkey employing them on him for years and they’re extremely effective in the short term.  
DR PRADESH: ...  
K BROFLOVSKI: You’ll definitely have to keep him sectioned for six months minimum. After about a week, he’ll pull an act like you’ve broken his will. Don’t buy it. The second break will be fake too. The third will be at least partly sincere, but you need to push harder. Don’t trust him if he’s cleaned up and brushed his hair against his natural part - that’s part of a costume. If he gets quiet, that’s just a timebomb ticking down and you’re about to get massively screwed over. You want him to get angry, not just tantruming. If he’s panicking, you’re on the right track.  
DR PRADESH: It sounds like you’re giving me military tactics. Don’t you think this is all a little... melodramatic, Kyle?   
K BROFLOVSKI: Absolutely not.  
K BROFLOVSKI: You don’t know what he’s like.  
DR PRADESH: Then tell me.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Didn’t I just explain it?  
DR PRADESH: There’s a lot that can be extrapolated from what you just said, but it’s all about how you think he should be treated. Not what you actually think of him.  
K BROFLOVSKI: ...  
DR PRADESH: Kyle, tell me what you really think of him.  
K BROFLOVSKI: ... [NOTES: _here, subject rolled his eyes. However, he complies._ ]  
K BROFLOVSKI: Okay.   
K BROFLOVSKI: [ _deep breath_ ] Eric Cartman is both the smartest and stupidest person I know.  
K BROFLOVSKI: He’s got almost limitless imagination and ambition, which is why everyone still hangs out with him even after everything he’s done to us. There’s not really much to do on a Saturday afternoon in South Park if you’re not with Cartman.  
K BROFLOVSKI: In his own way, I do think he cares about his friends. At least he cares what people think. He just can’t empathize with other human beings.  
K BROFLOVSKI: I mean - he likes cats. Cats, he gets.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Actually, now that I think about it, he’s a lot like a cat. His understanding of human emotion begins and ends at how it can be manipulated to get what he wants, which is mostly food, sleep and occasionally permission to enact unspeakable acts of indirect violence on people he feels have wronged him. Not direct violence, mind you - he doesn't like to get his hands dirty if he doesn't have to.  
DR PRADESH: I see.  
K BROFLOVSKI: I honestly think that if his childhood had been less completely messed up he could have really made something of himself.  
K BROFLOVSKI: I don’t know - maybe he still can.  
K BROFLOVSKI: As it stands... well, I don’t think there’s anyone in town who deserves to be locked up in this psych ward more than him.  
DR PRADESH: It seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.  
K BROFLOVSKI: [ _subject laughs_.] To be honest, I’ve been waiting years for this.  
K BROFLOVSKI: If I thought it was possible to get him committed, I would have tried it a long time ago.  
DR PRADESH: _You_ would have tried?  
K BROFLOVSKI: Uh... yeah. Of course I would have. He’s fucking insa -  
K BROFLOVSKI: Sorry, am I allowed to say fuck in here?  
DR PRADESH: Knock yourself out.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Okay. He’s fucking insane, and this has been a long time coming.  
DR PRADESH: But why you specifically?  
K BROFLOVSKI: What do you mean?  
DR PRADESH: Doesn’t that seem like something that maybe someone like, say, his mother, should have taken care of?  
K BROFLOVSKI: Pfft - like that was ever going to happen.  
DR PRADESH: That still doesn’t explain why it has to be you.  
K BROFLOVSKI: It’s just a turn of phrase. I’m sure the other guys said the same thing.  
DR PRADESH: No. They did not.  
DR PRADESH: They all stressed a very pointed disassociation with Eric’s misbehavior.  
DR PRADESH: You on the other hand... you talk about him like he’s your responsibility. Like you have some sort of obligation to him.  
K BROFLOVSKI: [NOTES: _the subject appeared to be taken aback. K. Broflovski is a very well spoken and articulate young man, but he stumbles over his words here_ ]  
K BROFLOVSKI: I... I don’t feel that way at all.  
DR PRADESH: All you’ve done since you’ve gotten in here is put yourself in the position of Eric’s “keeper”.  
DR PRADESH: You said, and I quote: _“I’ve been lowkey employing DBT techniques on him for years”_.  
K BROFLOVSKI: You literally brought me here to talk about Cartman.  
K BROFLOVSKI: What else was I supposed to say? I’m just trying to give you advice based on years of dealing with him and his bullshit.  
DR PRADESH: You have to admit: the way you talk about him it a little... odd.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Okay, maybe, yeah. But our relationship is a little “odd”.  
DR PRADESH: Yes, I’ve been wondering about that actually.  
DR PRADESH: Everyone else I’ve spoken to has danced around the subject, but I’ve gotten the impression that you two had a combative, somewhat antipathic, “friendship”.  
DR PRADESH: And yet you come in here concerned about his concussion. Armed with genuine and even empathetic insight into his psychology. With a belief that he can turn his life around.  
DR PRADESH: Additionally, it says here in his medical records that he once donated a kidney to you when you were suffering a critical health crisis?  
K BROFLOVSKI: I promise that you are misinterpreting that situation on every possible level.  
K BROFLOVSKI: He would have happily let me die.  
DR PRADESH: I wonder.  
K BROFLOVSKI: You don’t have to. I’m telling you.  
DR PRADESH: And yet, here you are.  
K BROFLOVSKI: ... what are you getting at?  
DR PRADESH: Kyle.  
DR PRADESH: Aren’t you his boyfriend?  
[NOTES: _subject is not shocked. Instead, reacts with anger._ ]  
K BROFLOVSKI: _Boyfriend_!? Ha! Is _that_ what he said about me?  
K BROFLOVSKI: God, he’s so fucking _delusional_.  
DR PRADESH: Actually, he said nothing about you at all.   
K BROFLOVSKI: ...  
K BROFLOVSKI: ...  
K BROFLOVSKI: ...  
K BROFLOVSKI: ... _really_?   
DR PRADESH: Really.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Nothing?  
DR PRADESH: Not a peep, except to acknowledge that he was found at your house by the police.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Seriously? Not one _single_ thing?  
DR PRADESH: Do you find that hard to believe?  
K BROFLOVSKI: Extremely.  
DR PRADESH: Let’s take a look at my notes here...  
DR PRADESH: He spoke at some length about: Kenny, Stan, Leopold, “that asshole Craig”, Wendy Testaburger, Scott Malkinson - who, as I understand it, has diabetes - Token, Craig’s long-term on-and-off again gay boyfriend Tweek Tweak, Bebe - who I now know hosts all the underage drinking parties at your school - Timmy, Jimmy, your younger brother Ike, Clyde, a boy who I cannot believe is actually named Dog Poo, David Rodriguez, and Kevin Stoley, who apparently wore a Spock cosplay to school every wednesday and friday until he got beat up on the first day of seventh grade.  
DR PRADESH: Nothing about Kyle Broflovski.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Unbe-fucking-lievable.  
DR PRADESH: You sound almost insulted.  
K BROFLOVSKI: He’s probably just trying to avoid getting in more trouble than he’s already in.  
K BROFLOVSKI: Seriously, he’s done shit to me over the years that would put him away for the rest of his life if the police knew about it.  
DR PRADESH: And... you still hang out with him?  
K BROFLOVSKI: I -  
DR PRADESH: Keep an eye on him, perhaps?  
K BROFLOVSKI: Okay, yeah, I _keep a fucking eye on him_! So what! Should I just ignore him? Let him do whatever the fuck he wants? I know how to mitigate the damage he does, so that’s what I fucking do. Why is everyone giving me such a hard time about it lately!?  
DR PRADESH: Perhaps your approach would be more effective if it did not also involve teenage sexual experimentation?  
K BROFLOVSKI: AuuuUUGH!  
K BROFLOVSKI: What the hell do you _want_ from me!? I thought this was about Cartman’s issues, not mine!  
DR PRADESH: This is about Eric.  
DR PRADESH: This is me trying to get a read on a particularly dangerous and uncooperative patient.  
DR PRADESH: He very specifically avoided talking about anything that was really important to him.  
DR PRADESH: Which, yes, includes you, Mr. Broflovski.  
DR PRADESH: You described him as a blossoming evil genius, but his evasive tactics were tissue paper thin.  
DR PRADESH: You can’t fool me. Eric can’t fool me either.  
DR PRADESH: I’ve made my career interviewing spoiled, psychotic shits like him. I knew he was playing me the moment he opened his mouth. I’m a professional, Mr. Broflovski - I don’t need a sixteen year old telling me how to do my job.  
K BROFLOVSKI: O-oh.  
DR PRADESH: And don’t think that I’ve lived all these years in Park County without hearing about the exploits of Eric Cartman.  
DR PRADESH: I was Scott Tenorman’s psychologist for years.  
K BROFLOVSKI: ... holy _shit_.  
DR PRADESH: Believe me, Kyle: I’m just as invested as you are in making sure that he never hurts anyone ever again.  
DR PRADESH: But one thing that I’ve learned about fucked up kids is that you can’t blame all their behavior on them. With cases like Eric - cases where the issues of boundary-laying was broken from the very start - you have to look at every person in their life in order to solve the puzzle of what is ultimately wrong with them.  
DR PRADESH: And you are a _very_ important part of that puzzle, Kyle. You’re a smart kid. I _know_ that you know that.   
DR PRADESH: So I need to know -   
DR PRADESH: ... why have you been choking Eric?  
DR PRADESH: And why the _hell_ is he letting you do it?

**ELEVEN MONTHS AGO**

Your tenth grade history teacher was a lazy fuck who over-relied on alphabetic class organization, which is why you got stuck working on every group project with Cartman for an entire horrible semester.

“God, I can’t believe he paired us together again. Doesn’t he know how to put names in a fucking hat?”

“What, you wanna be partnered with fucking Butters? Dog Poo? _Clyde_?”

“You seriously aren’t sick of me yet, fat ass?”

( _Cartman laughed at that, a little hollowly. That’s fine, your jabs were all hollow too. Neither of you were really trying._ ) “Yeah. But I’m not sick of the easy A’s I’ve been getting thanks to your obsessive compulsive disorder.”

Actually, Cartman isn’t the worst person to do a group project with. He drags his heels on the actual research, but he’s got a knack for discursive commentary on and knows how to give a killer presentation, even if it’s not always on topic.

“So, Satyagraha.” ( _That’s right. That’s what you two were studying that night - fucking Gandhi and his fucking stupid ass philosophy of nonviolence. The two of you spent an hour filling Cartman’s bedroom with suffocatingly fake candor_ \- “Ha ha, Kyle, it’s so faggy how you care about your grades.”/”Shut up, fat ass, at least I didn’t fail gym last semester. And give me back the textbook!” - _both of you pretending as hard as you could that this wasn’t totally awkward, being alone together for this first time since you got him off._

 _At least you were pretending. Cartman, you can easily see in retrospect, was plotting. He started an argument with the grace of someone throwing a chunk of the Berlin Wall into a still lake._ )

“Do you really believe all this crap?”

“All what crap?” you ask tiredly, backspacing a particularly turgid sentence one letter at a time.

Cartman makes a few sweeping, meaningless hand gestures. His entire countenance reeks of desperation to do anything but schoolwork. “All this Satyagraha bullshit - the idea that peaceful resistance actually accomplished anything?”

You roll your eyes. “Read the fucking assignment, asshole. It _did_ work.”

“Uh, except that it totally didn’t.”

“You’re not going to get out of writing your half of the essay by undermining the very premise of our thesis, so don’t even try it.”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Kyle. I’m trying to make our essay _better_. I think this is an important discussion for us to have in order to do this project together. We have to present a unified front in order to get our A, but how can we do that when we don’t even understand what we’re arguing about?”

You shoot him a long side-eye. He hasn’t even opened his laptop. “Yeah right. Not your best tactic. I’ll give it a 1.5 on the scale of ‘faking ass cancer’ to ‘electrocuting yourself with a Tivo so that you can time travel back to 1776’.”

“I was having a flashback, Kyle. I didn’t literally travel through time.”

“Whatever. I’m not buying it.”

“Look at me! Look into my eyes Kyle - I’m am so incredibly serious about this.”

He points at his eyes. You examine them; they look like they always do, which is to say glassy and weirdly intense, like a reptile’s.

You take the bait anyway. _Instinctively_. You really can’t help it - it’s an automatic response, like a headless chicken twitching around the yard minutes after it’s dead. Also: way more stimulating than the essay you’re supposed to be working on. 

“Okay, fine. _Yeah_ , Cartman. I do believe all this ‘crap’. I think that people who are able to gracefully navigate violent hierarchical power structures and convert their enemies without the use of coercive force are admirable and that it’s an ideal we should all strive towards. Are you happy now?”

He leans right into your space so that he can examine you more closely. You’re already packed kind of tight at his desk, so it’s more disconcerting that his usual stalker-stare.

“Hmmm… I don’t believe it,” he says.

“Believe what? In the concept of nonviolence? Wow - big fucking surprise. I’d be more impressed if I’d ever seen you take a hit without crying afterwards.”

He doesn’t react to your jab even a little. His shit-eating smile is so serene that you fantasize, just a little, about punching it off and seeing him cry.

“No, I don’t believe that _you_ believe it. I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself Kyle. You’re too smart to really think that. You’re just saying it so that you can feel like a good person.”

You break eye contact and start re-typing your failed sentence. _One letter at a time_. “Or maybe it’s what I actually think.”

“You fucking sound like Wendy.”

“No… _no_ I don’t.”

Cartman snorts. “You seriously do, brah. If you actually believed it, you’d say it in your own words. You wouldn’t quote Wendy fucking Testaburger and expect me not to notice.”

“You do realize that not everyone says shit with the intent of manipulatively altering reality around them? Most people don’t hyper-analyze everything they say and do based on what people will think.”

“What!?” Cartman swivels his chair around so that he’s facing you. “Of course they fucking do! No one really likes _kale_ , Kyle. Jesus Christ, _wake up_ \- the entire idea of peaceful resistance is made up to make sure that the kind of people who shop at Whole Foods won’t clue into the fact that the electoral system is totally rigged. The real work is done by violent radicals, and then these hippie fucks come along preaching their love and tolerance bullcrap and that’s all the history books talk about!” He slams a hand down on the keyboard of your laptop for emphasis, interjecting a whole line of nonsense into your word program and accidentally opening iTunes. 

“I…” your vision flickers to the second paragraph of your now-garbled essay, where you’ve already detailed the campaign of anti-British terrorism that preceded Gandhi’s revolution. This is a suspiciously well-articulated argument on Cartman’s part. “I really think you’re oversimplifying the topic.”

“No, _this_ -” he stabs at your tenth grade History Reader with a fat finger. “- is oversimplifying the topic! Take a look at recent history. Did Occupy Wall Street work?”

You shut your eyes. “... no.”

“Can you even remember the name of any feminist march that’s been held in the last ten years?”

“No.”

“Do you think _anything_ liberals have attempted recently is going to prevent Mr. Garrison from getting re-elected a second time?”

“ _No_.”

“But you know what worked?”

“Enlighten me.”

He whispers it. “The aftermath of the Russian Revolution.”

Your eyes snap open so that you can glare at him. You should have known that Cartman was going to make this into a _thing_ about the Bolsheviks. He’d been obsessed with Stalin for years at this point. “If you utter the words ‘Uncle Joe’ I swear to God I’m going home, and then I’m going to bomb this essay so hard your grades are gonna feel it until graduation.”

“I don’t have to talk about Comrade Jughashvili, Kyle, I can use plenty of examples from American history. If peaceful social disobedience is sooo _ooooo_ effective, why did the Black Panthers carry guns?”

“Oh _please_. Don’t pretend that you care about the Civil Rights movement.”

“Dude, the Black Panthers were fucking awesome before COINTELPRO cut off their balls and turned the whole movement into a bunch of weeping vaginas.”

You blink at him. “Wh… what?” Post-Communist-phase Cartman has been a pretty wild-trip on several metrics, but this was not a combination of words you ever thought you’d hear from his mouth. He _continues_ -

“Come on - would the FBI have filled Fred Hampton with bullets if they thought they could hug him out of his views and influence?”

“How the hell do you know or care anything about the Fred Hampton assassination?”

“Uhhh, duh Kyle? It was on the History Channel last week.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, dude. It was fucking tight.”

“Huh. They’ve really come around over the last few years.”

You blearily contemplate the effect that current political situation has had basic cable channels for a long enough time that Cartman starts to get antsy from lack of attention. He sidles close and tries to tip your laptop shut, but you stop him with a well-timed palm shoved under the lip of the screen. 

“You know Kyle -” he sighs. “This has been a disappointingly one-sided debate. All you’ve done so far is deflect and avoid the topic.”

“That’s because I just want to get this assignment over with. The burden of proof falls on the one who starts the argument.”

Cartman wags his finger at your and tsks. “That’s not an answer, Kyle. Do you, or do you not actually think that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violence?”

“I think -” you say in a tone so careful and measured that it makes your jaw ache. “- that sometimes - in the right hands - violence can be as powerful a tool for the weak as it is for the strong. But peaceful resistance is the more high minded path. _And_ -” Cartman opens his mouth to respond, but you cut him off. “- I think that however shitty reality actually is, the moment we let go of our high minded ideals is the moment that we’re really fucked.”

“Hmmm… big words for someone who’s been in more fistfights than anyone else I know. If you have such _high minded_ beliefs, why are you usually the one who throws the first punch?”

“ _Because_ -” You spin your chair around so fast that Cartman actually jumps to his feet. Did he… _think you were going to hit him_? “- violence is easier. It’s faster! And it leaves an impression that lasts longer than anything else! And I’m a shitty, imperfect person who, like everyone else in the world, doesn’t always live up to my ideals. Is _that_ what you wanted me to say?”

He stares at you for a moment before responding. “No.”

“Then what the hell _do_ you want to hear?”

His eyes are pulled impressively wide - wide enough that it gives his face a weird neotenous quality. He looks, in an intentionally cultivated way, almost _cherubic_ when he’s saying the most evil shit. His lip wibbles. “I… want you to say that you think Ghandi’s a pussy.”

“Well, I don’t. I think he’s a hero.”

“Really?” Here, Cartman’s voice starts quivering, like when he’s got some piece of hot gossip he can’t wait to drop. There’s something in his arsenal that he’s _really_ excited about. This is probably what his whole argument has been building towards. He speaks each word slowly and with exquisite relish. “Well, you know who _Gandhi_ thought were pussies?” He pauses for dramatic effect. “The _Jews_.”

You bite your lip so hard it almost draws blood. “Oh fuck off Cartman, he did not.”

“He did too! He said that the Jews should have gone willingly to the holocaust!” 

_You’re above this, Kyle. Don’t give him what he wants_. “That’s ridiculous,” you respond through your teeth. “He did not fucking say that.”

“It’s true! Look it up on your phone! He said they should have offered themselves up to the butcher’s knife and thrown themselves into the sea!”

So much for your high-minded ideals. It’s only four steps to get out of your seat to suckerpunch him, so you do it. He stumbles back and clutches his mouth with both hands, but there’s something wrong. Usually Cartman crumbles at the first sign of physical resistance, but right now he’s giving you a bright, wild-eyed look. Over-eager. His voice has a manic edge to it. You make a fist so tight that your nails cut into your palm.

“Jesus, I’m not endorsing what he said! I’m just informing you about the research I did! Gandhi thought that since the Jews all died anyway, they should have practiced your _precious Satyagraha_. Without it, their deaths were entirely meaningl -”

You don’t want to hear the end of that sentence, so you hit him again. This time he hits the floor laughing. “Yes!” he shouts. “ _Yessssss_. Come on Kyle, do it again! Unleash that fiery, redhead temper of yours on me!”

“What is your fucking _problem_?” you bite out. The question becomes rhetorical the moment it leaves your mouth: you know exactly what his problem is. “Wait… are you trying to… get me to choke you again? So you can… so you can fucking _get off_!?”

“Uh, duh?” You’re hovering over him, blocking out the lamplight so that his face is cast in shadow. The whites of his eyes are almost fluorescent. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I bet you’ve been thinking about it too.”

“I’ve been trying to forget it ever happened.”

“Yeah,” Cartman laughs, uneven. There’s an tremor of vulnerability in his voice, but he doesn’t stumble over a single fucking word. “But you can’t. So let’s do it again.”

You can’t fucking believe this. You seriously can’t - every time you think Cartman can’t surprise you anymore, he just has to take shit that one extra step further.

“Is that really what you want?” you demand, voice low. It’s like your body is moving on autopilot when use the heel of your foot to push him down.

“Yeah.” 

You crawl over him and set a palm on his throat. He’s trembling. “Is that seriously what you fucking want? Is that your idea of a good time? Fucking getting _choked_?”

“Y-yeah.” He sounds like he does when he’s seen an especially decadent donut.

You were planning on teaching Cartman a lesson, but now that you’re straddling him on the floor, it feels kind of weird. He’s staring at you impatiently.

“What’s the fucking hold up?”

“Uh. Now that I’m down here, it feels kind of weird,” you admit.

He rolls his eyes. “Just think of every time I’ve pissed you off. That’ll get your hard for this in like a second flat.”

_What???_

“Wait. Is that… what you think about?”

It feels profane asking this in words. You _knew_ it. Like - in a sense-feeling kind of way. Like all the disconnected pieces of it have been floating around in your head for years now, making you vaguely anxious every time the edges of the thought overlap. You’ve never even verbalized it internally. Now that you’ve said it, the knowledge crystallizes all at once: _Cartman probably jerks it while thinking about me. He probably jerks it thinking about all the fucked up things he’s done to me. And not just the things he did to me last week - the things he did to me two years ago, four years ago. He’s probably jerked it thinking about things that happened when we were nine fucking years old._

“When you’re trying to get hard!? You _think about pissing me off_!?”

“Yeah,” he says like it’s obvious. “What else would I think about?”

That does make you pissed. It makes you livid. How dare he. How fucking dare he -without your permission! He has no fucking right - you close both hands under his chin and begin to squeeze - no _fucking_ right to use your traumatic memories as masturbation fodder. It doesn’t matter if you were both there - those things belong to _you_ , not him. He moans, which just pisses you off more.

So your hands wrench around his neck and don’t unwrench. Because you’re thinking about all of it: Imaginationland, the time he gave you AIDS, the Special Olympics, Mitch Conner, HUMANCENTiPAD, the thing with the Old Gods, the other thing with the Old Gods when you were a bit older, that time he stole your your middle school valedictorian speech and used it to wipe his ass ten minutes before you were supposed to go onstage, Mel Fucking Gibson’s fucking Passion of the Christ, the goddamn term _daywalker_ which Clyde still habitually uses, the way he treated Heidi, the way he still sometimes treats Kenny, the fact that Ike fucking thinks he’s cool, the fact that he’s driven you to do things you regret, over and over again, through his direct action, through indirect manipulation, even through his fucking _absence_ and _indifference_ : monstrous, horrible things that you still can’t believe yourself capable of. Like what you’re doing right now.

You reach a Nirvana of rage. It’s like you float right out of your body, which is how you notice that Cartman’s eyes are not rolled back in pleasure, but because you choked him fukcing unconcious.

Which… which was your intent, right?

 _Right_?

“F-fuck -” your hands fly off his neck. You press down checking for a pulse, but you actually have no idea how to do that and you’re kind of freaking out. There’s one thing you can be very medically certain of, however.

He’s not breathing.

Cartman doesn’t wake up when you shout obscenities at him, or from the first two times you backhand him. You’re contemplating reducing yourself to giving him clumsy, untrained CPR when his eyes snap open and he starts hyperventilating. You pull back, hands suspended in the air uselessly, and watch him cough and hack and gasp because of the vicious, adominble thing you just did to him. When he catches his breath, he stares at you with an expression that is completely blank. Like, so blank that you start to worry that even though you didn’t kill him, you might have given him brain damage. You stare back, caught between equally powerfully tides of relief and mortification. There are tears beading at the corners of your eyes.

Finally, Cartman lets out a long, tortured breath. “That was… fucking _sweeeeet_ ,” he says hoarsely.

That snaps you out of it. “Cartman! What the hell!? I thought I’d killed you!”

He pushes himself up onto his elbows shakily. You help him into a sitting position and try not to feel too guilty about the way he’s rubbing his sore neck. You can already see the bruises forming. “Well, you didn’t,” he rasps. “I understand everything now. Also that was the best orgasm of my life.”

“You seriously came from that?”

“Yeah, that was the whole point.” He closes his eyes for a moment and takes another deep breath. Then he fixes you with a gaze that can only be described as predatory. “Okay, your turn.”

“What.”

“Kyle, don’t be a bitch. Tit for tat brah.”

“If you think I’m going to let you put your hands around my neck, you’re more delusional than I thought.”

Cartman lets out a frustrated noise. “Fine, whatever. If you’re gonna be so delicate about it we can do it the normal way.”

What the fuck? “N… no.”

“C’mon - it’s totally faggy if only one of us gets off. We both have to do it or it’s gay.”

You roll your eyes. “It’s really hilarious how many times you’ve used homophobic slurs tonight when you were the one begging me to touch you.”

Cartman leans forward and cages you between his arms. “We have to at least kiss,” he says, like this is just some normal, matter of fact thing. You scoot back, letting out a nervous half-giggle.

“What the hell, dude. It’s going to be way faggier if we kiss.”

It’s Cartman’s turn to roll his eyes. “No, it’s like… practice kissing. There’s nothing gay about it - it’s totally normal.”

“ _Is_ it? You know I was just fucking you when I said that thing about the gay polarity in fourth grade, right?”

“C'mon. Girls do it all the time. Are you telling me you don’t believe in gender equality? Better not let your new best friend Wendy find out.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Then don’t make this weird, Kyle.”

“ _I’m_ not the one making it weird!”

“Yes you are! Guys practice kissing on each other all the time, but it’s weird for bros to jerk each other off - especially if it’s one-sided. This is simple math, Kyle.”

“It’s literally the opposi - wait.” Your brain catches up to all the implications in Cartman’s argument. “Who have you been kissing?”

Something flashes through his eyes: embarrassment? Fucking Finally. “Uhhhhh, no one.”

“Butters?”

“Ew! _Fuck_ no!”

You narrow your eyes. “Kenny?”

He doesn’t answer, but he does break eye contact. _Bingo_. You sigh and make a dismissive hand gesture.

“Oh, whatever. Everyone’s kissed Kenny.”

“Yeah,” Cartman snorts. “That’s why the whole school has his fucking herpes. _And_ -” he gets his face all up in your personal space again. “- that’s why it’s fine if we kiss, because we’ve both had Kenny’s herpes since we were ten years old.”

“Your justifications for this are getting more and more abstracted, fat ass. Are you seriously asking to kiss me?”

“Yeah,” he slithers closer and you wiggle away. “That’s what I’m doing Kyle. Stop being so fucking stingy.”

You laugh, in this stupid, shaky way. “Really? That's it? That’s your whole plan? You're just going to _ask_ me nicely?” Your back hits the baseboard of his bed and suddenly, you can hear your pulse rushing in your ears. His hand rolls over your knee and slides halfway up your thigh, but stops there. Almost respectfully. “You're not going to… do… anything? Try to blackmail me?”

“What the fuck?” Cartman sputters. “Do you want me to rape you?” His thumb digs under the seam of your jeans’ thigh. “I always suspected you were a dirty, little masochist, Kyle, but that's just going too far.”

“Wh-what!? No, I don't want you to _rape_ me! It's just… this is all really fucking weird. It's not how I thought this would ha -”

You don’t even get it all the way out. Cartman blinks, twice, and then grins at you like a shark. Like you just gave him ten million dollars. “You've _thought_ about this happening.”

It’s not a question.

Your head goes hot. Your mouth begins to water, like a prelude to throwing up, only that’s not what it is. In your palms trembles the memory of every dream you’ve ever woken up from where you’d killed Cartman with your bare hands. Never with a knife or a baseball bat or anything like that. You’ve always been absolutely certain that you would do it with your bare hands, ever since the two of you were sat side by side in the mess hall of a US Aircraft Carrier on the way home from Somalia that one time in fourth grade and he said to you: _“Nice try, Jew, you almost got me.”_ Like it was a game. Like you didn’t really intend just a little bit for him to die. Like you weren’t both still splattered with the blood of a dozen people whose deaths were _kind of fucking his fault_. Like you hadn’t had nightmares about the things he’d done to you, the countless humilations he’d subjected you to. Sure, the two of you went back to playing Xbox with each other the next day like nothing happened, just like you always did. But from that moment on you knew that you would have to do it with your own two hands. And you knew that what he thought about you was -

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” you reply, dry mouthed. “How the fuck could I not with all the shit you’ve done to me?”

The two of you make eye contact - really, heavy intense eye contact. The emotion that surges between you could almost be described as... _sincere_.

Then Cartman pulls out his phone. “Well, if it'll assuage your ceaseless Jewish guilt…”

“It's not Jewish guilt to think that this situation is pretty fucked up, you absolute shi -”

“Shhhh! I’m working!” Cartman pokes around his phone for a couple seconds. The he shows you the screen, where’s he’s set up an audio editing app. He presses ‘play’. 

_“Do you want me to rape you?”_ says phone-Cartman.

 _“Yes ERIC please rape me,”_ replies phone Kyle, in a somewhat disjointed tone. _“I can’t wait for you to give IT to me.”_

“You're trapped now. Let me kiss you or everyone at school’s going to hear this tomorrow.”

You give him a half-lidded look, unimpressed. “No one’s going to believe I called you Eric.”

“Ah, but you just did!” Cartman jams his thumb down on the record button and cackles. “Oh Kyle, you're so predictable! No matter how much you protest, you always dance right into my web you adorable, hapless fo -”

( _Here's the thing - the really inexplicable, horrible thing: you kissed him first. To shut him the fuck up. To throw him off balance. He made a noise into your mouth that was satisfyingly shocked, then pushed you down in the same motion that he shoved his hand down your pants. The other inexplicable horrible thing that you try not to think about is that he was a lot better at the whole dick touching thing than he was at kissing. Like, that's not just you being a horny fifteen year old who'd never been touched before - Cartman had been giving out handjobs since before he was old enough to understand the significance of it, which is a thing you try not to think about because holy shit does it make you feel bad for him. That little well of genuine human empathy that's kept you connected to him. That thread is made of fucking graphene wire. He said to you -_ )

“ _Das stimmt, mein wunderschöner Glühwürmchen._ ” 

“Don’t -” you pant. “Don’t sweet talk me in German, you fucking creep.”

So, right into the shell of your ear, he whispers: “ _Bor'ba za vse, chto khochesh', dorogaya_ …”

You press your hands over your eyes and bite the inside of your cheek. “Maybe try a culture not known for its history of anti-Jewish pogroms.”

“Whine and bitch all you want, but you’re still getting off to this.”

He’s not wrong, but it’s not because of anything particular to him or the situation. It’s because you’re a horny fifteen year old and the mere sensation of someone who isn’t _you_ touching your dick is enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Also, you haven’t jerked off in weeks because every time you attempt to give it a go, you start thinking about that night on the Canadian border, and Cartman’s face when you started choking him for real. It’s not a sexual thought - it’s an intrusive one. Like when people complain about how they can’t stop thinking about running over kids and old ladies while they’re driving: it’s maybe expressing something significant about the dark, primal undercurrents of human consciousness, but it’s not a thing that means anything about who you are and what you actually want to do. Thinking about it doesn’t stop you from coming so hard your vision blacks out for a second.

When you blink your eyes open, you’re treated to the sight of Cartman contemplatively licking your cum off his fingers.

“Hmm. Kosher jizz isn't as bad as I thought it'd be.”

He's so fucking heavy, and you have never hated anyone so much in your entire life. “Get the fuck off me,” you hiss through clenched teeth. To your surprise, Cartman obeys immediately. He’s been doing that a lot. Pacified, your horrible traitor brain thinks, _because he’s getting what he wants_. Your shitty goddamn brain then specifies: _Which is you, by the way_.

You drag yourself to Cartman’s dresser where he had a full vanity mirror installed a couple years ago in order to, you can only imagine, up his crossdressing game. You click the under-lights on and stare at yourself in the glass. You don’t look any different, even though you’re someone who’s just kissed Eric Cartman. The whole thing happened, then it stopped happening, and you’re still the same exact fucking person you were before you did it. Which means that it is indeed a thing that you, Kyle Broflovski, would literally do.

Cartman licks his whole hand clean like the glutton that he is. Then he turns to you and says: “I’m starving after that. Wanna order KFC?”

You press your eyes shut. “Yeah, of course I want to order KFC. What do you think I am? A monster?”

 _You don’t look any different_ -

You are acutely aware of how hard you slam the door to Dr Pradesh’s office. The noise rouses Stan from what looks like a pretty fitful nap, laid out over two bariatric chairs. His long limbs go out from under him and he almost takes a dive straight into the floor, but he catches himself on the back of the chair before he goes over. He clutches the ridge of the cushion and stares at you kind of... mom-ishly? Yeah, the look is definitely _mom-ish_.

Kenny’s fiddling with his smokes, probably considering lighting one up right here, under the smoke detector, because Kenny sincerely does not give a fuck. That’s your favorite thing about him. You can admit that you live vicariously through him a little bit in that regard, the same way he lives out the fantasy of having parents who give a fuck about him every time your dad pity-invites-him-over for a weekend every summer. Your friendship is complicated.

He nods in your direction, but says nothing. Neither does Stan. You look at your hands, and remember that you just spent ten minutes explaining to a total stranger why it was okay that you regularly wrap them around Cartman’s neck in a Definitely Sexual Way. But it’s not okay. Things actually haven’t been okay for a very long time, but it’s only just starting to catch up with you now. You hate this, because it’s like the cartoon version of teenage angst and you always thought you were going to be too smart for that.

“Let's just walk away from this and let him rot in here,” you growl. Stan and Kenny exchange a look. A really fucking weird one. And then they look at you, equally weird.

“What?” you ask, after that goes on way too long to be comfortable.

“Is that… really what you want?” Stan wonders, very slowly, pulling to his feet.

“Yes? Why wouldn't? I?”

“You're up talking,” Stan says. 

“I'm wondering what the hell is wrong with you that we've finally got a chance to wipe our hands of him and you're hesitating.”

“I'm not… you… he…” Stan seems to be struggling. He makes a few non committal hand gestures, then runs a hand beneath his hat, over his hair. “Kyle, you… he… the two of y-you....” He devolves into making ever vaguer hand gestures, and little noises of disbelief at the back of his throat.

Kenny says it instead: “Hey Kyle, nice hickeys.”

You choke and your hands fly to your scarf in a panic. Kenny laughs as you try to readjust it and hide your neck.

“ _That's_ what Stan was trying to say,” he snickers, rocking his chair back.

“Yeah,” Stan says, looking even more miserable than usual.

You take a steadying breath and drop your hands to your side. “I… really don't see what my hickeys have to do with anything.”

“Dude,” Stan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Come on. Don't make us say it.”

“I had a date last night, so of all the times for it not to be weird for me to have hickeys, today seems pretty high on the list.”

“Don't pretend that you, Kyle Broflovski, engaged in vigorous necking on the first date.” Kenny’s chair slams back into the linoleum. The noise makes you jump. “Besides, those hickeys are days old.”

“How do you know -”

“Because he's had hickeys before,” Stan answers. 

You put both of your hands on your face so you don't have to look at them anymore, your two best friends in the whole entire world. “Okay, guys, point fucking made. Can we stop saying the word ‘hickeys’ now?”

Apparently there’s nothing to talk about except the scandalous shit Cartman left on your neck, because Stan and Kenny get really quiet. 

You rub your hands over your face, but don’t remove them. You can’t look at them yet. “How long have you known?”

“Uh, like…. a year?” Stan ventures cautiously.

“Yeah,” echoes Kenny. “That's how long it's been going on right?”

You keep your hands over your face. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“Stan’s in denial,” says Kenny. 

“I'm not in denial.”

“I think I saw you once almost cry thinking about it.”

You can hear Stan rubbing his hair even more emphatically because the buckle on his watch is making a clicking sound against the plastic band of his hat. He is incredibly upset.

“I just… I dunno dude, what was I supposed to say to you? ‘Hey, Kyle. How's fucking Cartman? That's a totally healthy secret you're keeping from me for some reason’. You know how you are once you make up your mind about something. I mean, yeah, my first instinct was to barge in and make sure that he wasn’t, y’know… _making_ you do… _things_. But Kenny said he didn’t think that’s what was happening and we should probably approach this, uh 'delicately'.” Stan pauses, his voice gets about ten degrees warmer. It trembles a little too. “I mean, he was right, right? That wasn’t what was happening? Because dude I’ll never forgive myself if -”

“It wasn’t,” you say in a thin, crisp voice.

Stan lets out a long, quaking breath. “Holy shit it’s true. Fucking unbelievable…”

“I always knew it would end up like this,” Kenny offered.

“Shut up, Kenny,” you sigh. And then: “it's not what you guys think.”

Kenny sound incredulous: “Baby’s first sadomasochistic sexual exchange that you’ve become kind of addicted to because it’s been making Cartman behave, and also you love having an excuse to wail on him guilt free? Except that you still feel guilty, because you’re a human being with a conscience, and so the vicious cycle continues?”

You finally peel your hands away from your face because god forbid you miss the shit-eating grin peeking out from beneath the edges of Kenny’s scarf. “Okay, it is actually exactly what you think.”

Kenny snorts, triumphantly, and begins tapping a cigarette out of the pack. Stan’s reaction isn’t so cavalier.

“ _Dude_. Wha-what the fuck?” his voice squeaks on the word ‘fuck’. “Is _that_ what we thought it was!?”

Kenny just stares at him.

“Oh my God. Oh my GOD. _Sick_! Wh-what the actual fuck!?”

You can’t help but actually laugh a little. Not because your best friend is so upset, but because the situation is so absurd. “Oh, come _on_ , what did you think, Stan? That Cartman and I held hands and called each other sweetheart?”

“I… I don’t know!” Stan starts to fidget in place. He shoves his hands in his pockets, then rips them out again so he can wipe his forehead. “Honestly, dude, I tried not to think about it at all - I thought that you, like, made out and played video games and stuff.”

“Well, we don’t, uh, we don’t _not_ play video games.”

“Holy shit, I… I cant’ deal with this. I’m gonna… I’m gonna hurl. Ken, give me one of your smokes -”

Stan reaches for the pack, but Kenny swipes it away with the reflexes of a guy who still plays vigilante in his spare time. “Hell _no_. These things cost a fortune! And also you’re a latent addict! Cigarettes give you cancer, you know.”

“Okay that’s just unfair. Why is it okay for _you_ to smoke, then?”

“Because, my dudes -” Kenny grins and lights one up. “I’m fucking immortal.” He takes a drag and blows out a perfect smoke ring. 

It’s time for you and Stan to exchange the weird looks. This joke stopped being funny after that time Kenny almost died of muscular decay. Or that time he almost died after getting hit by an ice cream truck and going into a coma. Or that really, especially unfunny time he held a loaded gun to his head while you were playing superheroes.

Stan breaks eye contact and sighs gloomily. “I’m not judging you or anything, Kyle - I just wish that you’d _talked_ to me about it.”

You take a step forward so that you can touch Stan’s chin and re-adjust the angle of his face so that he's forced to look at you. Which, admittedly, always feels like a much faggier thing to to do since he’s gotten so fucking tall than it did when you were the same height.

But, y’know, he meets your gaze.

“Look, Stan - I admit, I’ve been going through some shit. And this whole… _thing_ with Cartman? It’s probably a symptom of that shit. But I’m going to be fine. I didn’t tell you because you have your own shit to deal with and you’ve got a bad habit of prioritizing my shit over yours, even when your shit is objectively worse than mine.”

“Say shit one more time, Kyle, I dare you.”

“I’m just trying to speak your language, dude.”

Stan does look like he might cry. “ _Dude_... you’re always so fucking condescending.”

“Yeah, I know.”

This incredibly soulful bout of Very Intense Super Best Friend Eye Contact is interrupted by the door to the ward swinging open. In comes Butters, holding a juice pack and a bag of Ringolos.

“Hey, guys, what are we talking about?” he asks, cheerfully.

You and Stan turn in unison and say: “Go away, Butters.”

Butters fiddles with the Ringolos bag and frowns. “Um, if that’s what you all want. But there really isn’t anywhere to go…”

“You were just in the cafeteria, right?” you say. “Go back there.”

He sighs in defeat. “Well, okay.”

Butters turns to leave, but then something occurs to you. A dark, evil thought - like a foul seed planted in your gut. “Wait.”

He looks back at you over his shoulder.

You swallow that dark, evil thought down your throat so that you don’t sound overtly suspicious when you ask: “Butters… what did you tell Doctor Pradesh?”

He turns around and tips his head to one side. “Well, gee, Kyle. I just told her the truth.”

Butters isn’t a liar, but there’s something a little ugly and duplicitous that lurks just beneath the surface of his guileless demeanor. You hear it in his voice, the same thing that made him relish in playing Supervillain when you were kids. On the word _truth_ , you know for certain: he fucking snitched.

“What did you tell her the _truth_ about, Butters?” you can hear your voice getting clipped and confrontational. Cartman might describe it as _'peevish'_. Butters doesn’t react to it, however. He’s never been afraid of you.

“I just answered her questions, Kyle. Now, I don’t think there’s any reason for you to get so worked up about it -”

You cross the room in four angry strides and grab the front of shirt so that you can shake him a couple times. “You had no _right_ to tell her about it!”

“I have no idea wh-what you’re talkin’ about -” Butters warbles back.

You shake him harder. He drops his snacks. “Don’t you dare play dumb with me, Butters. You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about!”

Kenny leaps out of his seat and grabs the back of your coat. “Kyle. It’s just Butters. Calm down.”

You don’t let go. A sea-change comes over Butters’s face because he was, indeed, playing dumb. “S-so what if I told her?”

“Told. Her -” you bite down on each word. “ _What_? I want to hear you say it.”

“A-about you an’ Eric,” he stutters. “An’ how you’ve been carrying on and whatnot.”

You shove Butters so hard that he lurches backwards and hits the wall. Kenny puts his hands on your shoulders and pulls you back.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Butters?”

“W-with _me_!?” Butters actually looks like he’s getting mad. He slices his hand through the air and then levels an accusatory finger at you. “I ain’t the one sneakin’ around behind everyone’s back, doing the nasty with Eric and then lyin’ to perfectly nice ladies like… like Doctor Pradesh about it! Did you even tell Stan and Kenny about it? Or did you lie to them too?”

You don’t answer. You can feel Stan’s eyes on you. Why the fuck did you think it was a good idea to even start this conversation - you’ve never been so humiliated in your life as you are today. Even fucking Butters is getting one up on you. He seems to have sensed that he’s gotten a good dig in, so he keeps on digging.

“And I’ve gotta say - the way you’ve been treatin’ Eric these last few months… well, I don’t think it’s very nice at all.”

“Why do you even care, Butters?” Stan asks him tonelessly. “You must hate Cartman more than any of us. Why do you give a fuck how Kyle’s been treating him?”

Butters licks his lips. “I believe everyone’s got their day of reckonin’,” he says with unfettered confidence. “And m-maybe… maybe this is Eric’s, but Kyle - if you aren’t careful, yours, well, it’s comin’ mighty soon.”

“Shut up, Butters,” you mutter.

“No, I will not shut up! You’re the one who was askin’ me about it! You’ve always been such a… such a gosh-darned hypocrite Kyle! That’s awful rich - you just hate losin’ an argument so much! You pretend to be so nice an’ caring, but I know you look down on me! But at least I’m honest with myself! If you really hate Eric so much, why are we even havin’ this conversation? C-can you tell me that?”

Your temper boils over. “I said _SHUT UP Butters_!”

You shout so loud that you wouldn’t be surprised if the whole floor heard it. You shout so loud that an outlandish sensation rocks through your body - like the onset of one of your migraines, but worse. A terrible noise cracks around you and all the lights in the room start flickering like wildfire - a hallucination, it must be. You shut your eyes against it, but you can still _hear_ it: acrylic shattering, a sound like a wave rising during the storm, Butters letting out a startled yelp and then going silent. It gets dark all around you.

When you open your eyes, you can see that it wasn't a hallucination at all. The fluorescent lights are blown out - cracked, with dark, brown stains where the plastic has broken open - and Butters is laying on the floor with a crack in his head so bad it’s leaking blood onto the floor. What the fuck? Was there an earthquake or something? When has there ever been an earthquake in South Park?

A drop of blood hits the floor under you as well. Startled, you look at your wounded thumb, but the cut’s already scabbed over. 

That’s when you -

Kyle staggers back two steps, touches his face, and turns unsteadily on his heel to look at Stan and Kenny with huge, haunted eyes. There’s a trickle of blood leaking from his nose.

“What the f-f” he says before passing out.

“Oh shit.” Stan rushes to catch him, but doesn’t quite make it. He looks up at Kenny helplessly, cradling Kyle’s unconscious body in his arms. “What the fuck just happened!?”

Kenny has an idea or two, but it’s nothing that he thinks Stan is ready to hear. He looks at the burst lights, then at Kyle, then at his half-smoked cigarette, which he dropped on the floor when the lights blew. Calmly, he bends down to pick it up and then goes to check on Butters.

“Butters isn’t dead,” he says. “But he’s kind of bleeding out.”

Stan stares at him. Kenny stares back. It’s been an incredibly weird fucking day.

Stan stutters: “Wh-what should we do? W-we should do something, right?”

“Well,” answers Kenny. “We’re in a hospital…”

As if Kenny’s words summoned them up out of thin air, a medical unit bursts in through the ward doors, equipped with a single stretcher and more IV bags than a single stretcher probably demands. In a flurry of chaos and TV-drama-worthy medical- _ish_ sounding dialogue, they shove Stan aside and lift Kyle onto the stretcher.

“Check his vitals!”

“They’re critical! We have to get him hooked up to 6 CCs of everything, stat!”

“Get the EPA on the phone and tell them we have a live one!”

They strap Kyle in and wheel the pram around to rush back the way they came.

“Wait!” Stan calls out. “Aren’t you going to take him too?” He points at Butters, who is now laying in a halo of his own blood and looking very pale. 

The head Doctor - who is for some reason wearing very expensive looking sunglasses indoors - tips his shades down and gives Butters a contemplative once over. “No, I don’t think so,” he says thoughtfully. “He looks like a little asshole. He can stay right there.”

As quickly as they appeared, the medical unit sweeps back down the hall and vanishes. Stan and Kenny stare after them. The room is dark and completely silent except for Butters’s burgeoned breathing.

Kenny - still staring wide eyed at the ward doors - reaches into the front pocket of his worn leather jacket and takes out his cigarette packet. With shaky fingers, he slowly fishes one out and hands it to Stan. “I don’t think those were real doctors,” he says.

Stan drags both hands down his face and groans. “I really don’t understand anything that happens in this town anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cartman """maturing""" out of overt bigotry, getting a boner for Stalin and becoming a pseudo-[Tankie](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tankie) is a very old headcanon of mine. I hope someone else out there finds it as funny as I do.
> 
> The thing about Gandhi is true. 
> 
> The German and Russian is google translated, I know it's bad.
> 
> My handwriting it bad too, so here's the [raw script](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kzJ5eLxvbS-rG8cOl_pJyWdrgSZTT5dbxe2sENzswQs/edit?usp=sharing) for the Cupid Me sequence. The music used is [More Than This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PAuWV-Vn0) by Roxy Music.


	3. Psychics Are Gay and Fake

“Ah - you might wanna go easy. Jimmy made him cry,” Token is telling you. It’s about Stan - Stan, who, at the moment, is sitting in the gymnasium stands blubbering into his his t-shirt while Kenny gently holds his hand. You know this, even though you’re standing behind the auditorium curtains wrenching the three pieces of loose-leaf containing your intervention speech on it into pieces.

 _Oh, it’s a dream_. You remember this: for some reason, you’re smack dab back in the middle of Stan’s tenth grade alcoholism crisis, which Kenny always calls _‘Stan’s Public Breakdown 2: Electric Boogaloo’_.

Great, this was your least favorite part of tenth grade. Even worse than the ‘B+’ you got in your Business elective, and the fact that you started touching Cartman’s dick on a semi-regular basis. You and Wendy planned this intervention together, even though you weren’t supposed to be talking to her ever since she broke up with Stan for the fourth time in the much-storied history of their tumultuous relationship. But at the time you weren’t exactly talking to Stan either, so _whatever_ , it doesn’t technically count as a violation of the bro-code. He shouldn’t have shown up to her _‘Wicked Women Woke-ing the World’_ keynote speech blitzed out of his goddamn mind.

Token gives you an awkward, but supportive, pat on the shoulder and slips out into the gym, leaving you alone except for the very obvious, very fat lump hiding where the curtains for the stage overlap with the changing rooms. You know what that is too.

You close your eyes and whisper: “I can wake up any time now.”

Just like in your memory, Cartman rolls out from between the canvass the moment Token’s footsteps fade. It would have been the perfect super-villain reveal, except that he gets his ankle stuck in the fabric and nearly makes a full face-plant onto the backstage. You can’t help but snicker, because the fat ass is usually smoother than this.

You haven’t woken up yet, so you play the memory out the way it’s supposed to go.

“I thought I told you not to come.”

“Just because Stan and I aren’t buttbuddies like you are doesn’t mean he’s not my friend. I have as much right to be here as anyone, _Kyle_ , it’s a free country.”

What you don’t say: _no, it’s really not a free country anymore_. What you do say: “If that’s how you actually feel, then go out there with Kenny and keep him company. You are _not_ giving a speech. We want him to make a full recovery, not kill himself.”

Cartman doesn’t respond to that. He hums and sways closer, tapping your incredibly dorky tie-pin. “Cute outfit, Woody Allen.”

“Of fuck off.” You are very aware that you're the only high-school-aged boy in the world who’s mom still buys their clothes. “Also: don’t compare me to disgusting pedophiles when I’m going through a difficult time. Or ever.”

“Was it Woody Allen’s clothes that allegedly touched little girls? I don’t think so, so what’s the big deal?”

You pull in a sharp breath to retort, but then Cartman’s reaching out to take your tie in both hands. You remember this too: _vividly_. For a moment you honestly thought he was going to strangle you. The idea of Cartman enacting any kind of negative or coercive physical force on you is so evocative and potent that your heart goes straight to your throat, even though you know how this one ends.

Instead of strangling you, Cartman straightens your tie - which was crooked - and leans down to give you a wet kiss on the cheek.

You shove him away with both hands. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He blinks at you. “Letting you be the man in the relationship for once.”

A classic Cartman verbal trap: you can only argue for one thing, your masculine pride, or the status of your relationship. You’re not sure you chose the right one: “We’re both men, retard.” 

He grins. Yeah, that was the one he wanted to hear. “Yeah, but you’re the bitch and I’m the stag.”

“Now you’re mixing metaphors. It’s ‘doe and stag’, or ‘bitch and stud’.”

“Hmmm… I see. Very informative as always, Kyle,” he drawls. “And _whiiiiich_ one are you again?”

“Neither!” you hiss, even though there’s no in-dream consequence to raising your voice. “Oh my God, you’re such a fucking moron. I can’t believe -”

He cuts you off by pulling you into a tight embrace. When you don’t immediately struggle free, he starts stroking your hair.

“… are you trying to... _comfort_ me?”

“I’m _trying_ to be “actually nice”, like you’re always nagging me about - you’re welcome. Is it working?”

It did sort of work, you remember. But not for the reason Cartman was hoping. Trying to circumvent the short-circuiting his weirdass behavior always sets off in your brain takes up so much processing energy that it diverts functions from other things, like stress, or being so fucking mad at Stan for coming to school drunk and bombing half his exams that you’re not sure how you’re supposed to go out there and ‘go easy on him’. _It’s like squeezing a stress ball, or putting your fist through a -_

You shut your eyes and, _in the memory_ , let yourself be hugged. One benefit of his nauseating diet is that Cartman is really goddamn soft. He is, admittedly, very nice to hug when you’re upset, as long as you forget everything else about him.

“Do you like this?” asks a smooth, professional voice, out of fucking nowhere. It’s a voice that you’ve frankly heard too much of today.

The voice comes from over your shoulder, but when you open your eyes, Cartman and the gymnasium stage have disappeared and you’re sitting across from Dr. Pradesh. She’s angular and understated; not a hair or thread out of place, staring into you with her dark, unreadable eyes

You sigh and rub your forehead, in the place where your migraines always start. “Didn’t we literally just have this conversation?”

“Not exactly. I know that you like it when Eric responds obediently to physical force. You will admit, however covertly, to liking it when he jumps to your commands, like a trained dog. Which is a very strange way to treat another human being.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “Especially since all that Cesar Millan _tsst_ stuff turned out to complete bullshit. But it’s so _satisfying_..”

“It’s odd that’s the part of your relationship with Eric that you aren’t ashamed of. I’m asking you if you like _this_ : when he makes genuine effort to respond to your criticism and change himself.”

“You think that was genuine?”

“You’re the one who remembered it. You tell me.”

You shut your eyes again. “This is such a dumb fucking dream. I hate my stupid brain so much right now.”

“Try developing your imagination a bit more, Mr. Broflovski, and maybe your dreams will be less depressingly literal.”

“Thanks, but I don’t really need to get negged by by own subconscious.”

“Maybe you’ll wake up if you answer the question,” Dr. Pradesh suggests in a light tone. “Why are you afraid of it?”

You aren’t afraid. Are you? 

“Of course I want Cartman to make a genuine effort to change. I need -” Your eyes blink open. What are you saying? You _need_? What do you _need_ from Cartman? “I need to... believe he can change,” you whisper.

“Why?” asks Dr. Pradesh.

You don’t answer. She asks: “Do you like it when people listen to you?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” 

“I didn’t ask about ‘everyone’, Kyle. I asked about you.”

Oh boy. So _that’s_ what’s going on. Your fingers dig into your thighs, bunching up your jeans. You stare at your shoes, which due to dream logic are neither the shoes you were wearing at Stan’s intervention, nor the ones you wore to the hospital today. They’re… your old basketball kicks, from before you got impolitely shuffled off the team for not having had a magical growth spurt over the summer. _Real subtle_ , you think at yourself. 

“I know this is a dream,” you say. “I know what this dream is actually about, and it’s not Stan’s alcohol problems, or my relationship with Cartman. So why don’t we just get this over with.”

“If that’s what you want,” replies Dr. Pradesh, making a flourished line in her little notebook. “In that case: Kyle, turn around.”

You know what you’re going to see, but you turn around anyway.

You think about the image of Toronto crumbling to dust beneath the light of a nuclear blast kind of a lot. It plays out in total silence in your imagination, because that’s how you watched it go down in real life: on a TV that you were too stunned to unmute.

“Okay!” you shout at the ceiling of your own imagination. “I get it! I’m a huge asshole and I caused an international atrocity by not knowing when to shut my fucking mouth! Like I’m ever going to forget that any time soon! I… I’ve been trying to improve! To learn from it!”

Your voice sounds like a cartoon parody of itself when you say this, so shrill that you wince at it. Cartman’s called you variations of the word ‘hysterical’ probably an infinite number of times over the course of your lives. He’s not the only one. _Oh, stop being a victim_! Ike said to you afterwards.

There - you’re full on lucid dreaming now, being all clever, exposing the thematic hinge of what your subconscious is shouting in your ear at about a million decibels… but you still can’t wake up. You’ve got this sense that your body exists, that’s it’s asleep, that you’re a brain inhabiting it and could be in charge again if only you could _open your eyes_. But you just... can’t.

Once, in eighth grade, Cartman drugged your soda at lunch as part of a plot to tamper with the results of the middle school Student Council elections, only it was with medication meant for his cat so he didn’t put in a big enough dose to knock you all the way out. _So _, you spent twelve hours tripping over your feet and slurring your words and just generally acting like the way you were piloting your body was with an outdated game controller and from inside a prison cell with no windows. Of course: you still managed to foil Cartman’s little plan, with a little help from Jimmy’s newspaper, your friendly neighborhood Mysterion, and Tweek’s willingness to put any _thing_ in any _one_ ’s coffee cup if asked nicely enough.__

____

But that’s what this feels like: being ineptly drugged. Like you’re going to be trapped halfway between asleep and _not_ asleep for-fucking-ever.

A shadow emerges from the nuclear haze, almost imperceptible on the horizon at first, like a mirage. You squint at it; it shimmers into focus as it comes closer - a person, walking out of the destruction. Someone your age that you don’t recognize. You can’t even tell if it’s a boy or girl: they have a masculine jawline and dress, but neatly manicured fingernails and long, luxurious hair. The hair might be a wig, actually. They stare at you for a few moments with absolutely no facial expression. 

“Do I know you?”

The mysterious figure nods. Then they reach behind their back and - with great reverence - pull out a plastic crown. The whole image comes into sharp relief once the crown is on their head.

“D- _douchebag_?” you sputter? Holy shit - you haven’t thought about the New Kid in years. They left town as quickly and inexplicably as they arrived, right around the time President Garrison got re-elected. “What are you doi - wait, are you _literally_ in my dream?” The New Kid had weird superpowers, right? Did they somehow fart their way into your unconscious mind? Your vision flits around nervously, god they didn’t see anything… _incriminating_ , right?

What the hell are you thinking? That’s- no, no, that’s just stupid. It’s not possible. Get a grip, Kyle.

Not breaking eye-contact with you, the New Kid reaches into their pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. They hand it to you.

“What is this?”

The New Kid keeps staring at you. They tap the edge of the paper as if to say _“unfold it and find out, dummy”_ ’. So you do.

Everything around you is blindingly white.

It takes a moment for you to ground yourself in your surroundings, mostly because you have no idea where the fuck you are. It’s not just white because your eyes haven’t adjusted to the light - you’re in a completely featureless room: no windows, nothing on the walls, nothing but an intimidating metal rectangle hung directly above you, so smooth it barely casts a shadow.

“Wh-where -” your voice cracks when you try to speak. “Where am… I?”

A voice comes in from above you, filtered through a loudspeaker. It’s male, and just as smooth and featureless as everything else around you. “Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Broflovski. We’re glad to see that you’re finally awake.”

That’s when you notice you’re strapped to the bed.

“What the hell?” You tug at your wrist restraints. They’re leather, pulled so tight that you can’t even get your elbow off the mattress.

“Don’t be scared, Kyle.”

“I’m not scared. I’m fucking…” you tug again. “- _pissed_!”

“We know. Just wait for THE MACHINE to do its job and you’ll feel better in no time.”

“I don’t want to feel better. I wa - wait, who the hell are you? What the hell is the ‘machine’ and why did you say it in such a weird tone of voice? Why am I… _here_? And not at the hospital!?”

The rectangle above you begins emitting noises - unsettling, automated ones. Click, whirrs, rattles, that kind of thing. A seam of light appears around the inner edge of the metal. The whole panel pops open with an ominous hiss, revealing a long, coiled mechanical arm.

“Uhhhh,” you say, wrenching at your restraints in a manner that you would have to describe as both ‘desperate’ and ‘totally fucking pointless’. “What is that?”

“There’s no need to ask so many questions, Mr. Broflovski. The American Government will take care of you, just like it takes care of all its citizens.”

“Oh. The American Government? Is that who you are? In that case I’m so relieved.”

“There no need for sarcasm either, Mr. Broflovski. Especially not when you’re being recorded by the Department of Homeland Security.”

“Pfft. I’m not afraid of the Department of Homeland Security.”

“Well, maybe you should be. I’d say you’ve got better reasons than most to be careful about what you say. You _people_ always have so many political opinions, and it never goes well for you, does it?”

“You peo - wait, do mean because I’m Jewish?”

The Government Man does not respond.

“Are you seriously accusing me of Cultural Marxism!?”

The mechanical arm begins to unwind, one joint at a time. Each rotation makes a heavy, metallic _clink_ , bringing it closer and closer. You can see clearly now that there’s a needle and syringe at the end.

Okay, now you’re a little scared.

“Wh-what the fuck is going on here?”

“It’s just a simple sedative, Kyle. It will calm you down. We’re going to have a little… talk with you. And for that, you need to be _calm_.”

“I don’t need to be anything! Where are my friends! Where’s my family!? What happened to -” _oh shit, Butters_. “What happened at the hospital!? You can’t just kidnap a kid like this and have him disappeared -”

“Actually, Mr. Broflovski - we’re the US Government. We can do whatever the fuck we want.”

“No you fucking can’t! I know the political situation’s pretty messed up, but we still have the constitution! If I’m being held for doing something wrong, you have to at least read me my rights!”

You can hear the Government Man on the other end of the loudspeaker attempt to cover the microphone with his hand. His voice is muffled, but still comprehensible.

_“Jesus, Joe, this kid’s a little know-it-all.”_

_“I know, I could hear him all the way in the hall. He’s got a set of pipes on him, doesn’t he?”_

_“Hah, if you think this is bad you should see some of the surveillance footage we have on him. I’ve never seen a teenage boy with so much sand in their vagina.”_

_I’m still dreaming_ , you think for a dizzying moment, your vision going quite literally red. _After everything that happened last night, Cartman’s finally driven me insane. I’m going to wake up at Hell’s Pass Hospital and find out that I’m the one who’s been committed._

You make another perfunctory struggle against your restrains and shout at the ceiling. “I can hear you shit-talking me behind my back, you fuckfaces!” If they hate your voice so damn much, then you can just scream until you’re hoarse.

‘Joe’ sighs. Into the speaker, he says: “MACHINE \- increase injection speed from ‘ _dramatic tension’_ to _‘just get it the hell over with’_.”

The mechanical arm’s lazy unfolding kicks into high gear. _Clink, clink, clink_ \- it gyrates, knifing closer in rapidly increasing revolutions. 

There’s nothing else you can do, so you keep shouting. “Hey! I know the President! Why don’t you tell Mister Garrison to take the twelve inch dildo out of his ass and fix the fucking economy! Tell him that when I get out of here, I’m gonna -”

THE MACHINE’s syringe makes contact with your skin. You yelp as the needle slides under your skin, but once the sedative is in, you -

You…

You -

\- feel kind of nice actually. You have no idea what you were so pissed off about thirty seconds ago. It’s really great to be tied down to a soft bed without any expectations on you, cradled in the trustworthy palm of the US Government, which always takes care of its citizens. They’re way better at drugging people than Cartman, ha ha. Cartman sucks. You can’t wait to rub this one in his face.

 _Wait, what? That doesn’t sound right_ … says your Sensible Brain Voice. It’s very, very far away, so you ignore it. Who gives a fuck what you think, Brain? Drugs are awesome.

The door to the room swishes open and in sweeps a white-coated doctor accompanied by four armed guards. The guards undo your restrains and help you to your feet. You notice for the first time that you’ve been stripped of both your winter gear and your actual clothes. You’re naked beneath the open-backed hospital gown they’ve put you in. Five minutes ago that, coupled with everything else, would have made you incandescent with rage, but you can’t even manage to work up genuine spark of worry about where your hat’s gotten to, or how many people on the payroll of the US Government have seen your ass and probably taken pictures of it with their phones.

The guards walk you to where a table and two chairs have been set up in the center of the room and sit you down. Oh good, _this_ again.

The Doctor sits across from you. He asks: “Hello Kyle, how are you feeling?” He’s got the most forgettable face you’ve ever seen in his life. Your eyes slide off him for a second as the guards begin strapping you into the chair and you completely forget he even has one.

“Um?” You have to think about that for a moment. You watch one of the guards pull another leather strap tight around your wrist and something deep in the back of your skulls asks: _Is this really necessary_? You look at the doctor again. Oh cool, he has a nose. “Amazing, I guess?”

“I’m glad to hear that. You must be very confused, but everything will be explained soon. There’s just one more thing we need to do.”

The armed men are messing around with your head, putting something on it. You feel the pinch of cold metal at your temples.

“What are they doing?” you ask, starting to care a little. _You get such bad headaches lately_ -

“They’re locking a computer device around your head. It’s nothing to be scared of - it won’t interfere with your normal thought processes, but it will help us control your powers.”

“Powers?”

“There’s no point explaining it just yet. That sedative coursing through your veins is a fast acting emotion-control anti-stimulant, spiked with hypermetabolic mico-nanomachines. THE MACHINE created it to help us restrain… "special" individuals, such as yourself. Right now, the aspect of the personality tied to manifestation of your… _unique talent_ is suppressed. The effects will clear up in about -” the doctor checks his watch. “Hm. Forty-five seconds now. Then you’ll be back to your normal, charming self.”

You laugh, because that sounds so stupid. “Ha ha, what?”

The _thing_ around your head snaps shut. It’s like taking one step out of deep sleep. You say _fuck_ so loud that the guard who closed the thing actually jumps back a step.

“D-doctor -” the guard’s voice is trembling. “Are you sure it’s safe…?”

“Don’t worry, Tom. With the Vertex Synthesizer on, he’s just a normal sixteen year old boy. He can’t hurt you.”

“Of course I can’t…” your thoughts are swimming, swirling. It’s like being outside in the middle of a blizzard. You try to grab onto something - a detail, a single thread, something to react to - “Of course I can’t fucking _hurt_ you! I’m practically naked and strapped into a chair!”

Your eyes snap up and you glare at the doctor. You can see him clearly now: a middle aged man with deep lines around his mouth and greying blonde hair. He gives you a thin, wolfish smile. It’s actually really gross.

“Ah, _there_ you are, Mr. Broflovski.” the doctor says, in a voice just as creepy as his weird, pedo smile. He dismisses the guards with a wave of his hand, never breaking eye contact. “Leave us.”

“Are you going to explain what the hell’s going on now?” you ask when the two of you are alone.

“Of course. Despite all this rather unfortunate pomp and circumstances, you are a guest of the US Government.”

“Yeah, sure. Really feeling the hospitality here.”

“My name is Doctor Smith, by the way. It’s good to finally meet you.”

You sigh and shut your eyes. “I don’t care what your name is.”

“Maybe you should care, Kyle. I’m your only friend in here.”

“I am so sick and tired of people telling me what I _should_ do.”

“Of course. Usually the position is reversed, isn’t it? You’re used to being the one bossing people around.”

Your open your eyes, but just enough to give Doctor What’s-His-Name a withering look. “Excuse me?”

The doctor produces a thick file-folder from his lab-coat. He lets it fall on the table with an impressive _thump_. “We’ve been gathering information on you for years. On all the “things” you’ve “learned today”.”

 _Oh God_. It’s not a dream after all - this is a nightmare. Will you ever escape the shadow of your thoughtless childhood catchphrase? “Am I seriously being held prisoner by the US Government because I gave a couple of dumb speeches when I was a kid?”

“Ah - we don’t like the word ‘prisoner’. The Politically Correct term is ‘ _Reluctant Patron_ ’.”

“Am I seriously _being held prisoner_ by the US Government because -” you grit your teeth and rattle your chair. The restraints don’t budge. “- I gave a couple of _dumb fucking speeches_ when I was a kid!?”

Doctor Fuckass adjusts his glasses, then thumbs the folder open. “It was significantly more than ‘a couple dumb speeches’, Mr. Broflovski. We’ve documented over a hundred of your gay, little speeches in almost every scenario imaginable. Don’t you find it strange how no matter how extraordinary the circumstances, people somehow always listen to you?

“Not… not _always_.”

“Almost always. As far back as when you eight years old. Now, I can believe that perhaps you are a natural-born persuasive speaker, but I don’t believe the numbers on how many educated and powerful adults were willing to fundamentally change their beliefs because of something a third grader said to them. You’ve been a critical factor in individual, sweeping policy changes made by the last three Presidential Administrations.”

 _Don’t fucking remind me_. “I really don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“Kyle, what I’m about to tell you is probably going to be very shocking for you, so I want you to brace yourself.”

You stare at him, deadpan. “I’m strapped to a chair.”

The doctor rests his chin on his knuckles and speaks with a cadence so dramatic it _has_ to be rehearsed. “It’s no accident that you are so easily able to sway hostile people to your point of view.” The angle of the light turns the panels of his spectacles opaque. “Because… Kyle Broflovski - you are a powerful psychic.”

What Doctor Who-Gives-A-Fuck just said is the stupidest thing anyone has ever said to you, which is impressive considering the kind of life you’ve led, so it goes in one ear and out the other.

“What,” you reply. No question mark, just “ _what_ ”.

“You’re a level 10 Cerebrokinetic with latent - but unexpressed - secondary Telekinesis, which means that you are able to manipulatively alter reality when you speak to people.”

“What.”

“But only when experiencing a suitably powerful emotion like, say, anger. Or regret.”

“What.”

“I understand that your natural instinct is to be cynical of my claims, but we have proof.”

“No, you don’t, because psychic powers are fake.”

“Let’s see - you’ll believe in: aliens, heaven and hell, the human rights of fictional characters, the Lovecraftian Elder Gods, farts that reverse time, Jesus, Mr. Hankey -”

“D-dude, don’t talk about Mr. Hankey…” the whole town was still sore from the funeral.

The doctor slants his head just so, tipping his spectacles back into shadow. “Was Mr. Hankey real, Kyle?”

“O-of course he was.” A spike of shame that you haven’t felt in nearly a decade courses through you. How _dare_ he. “Everyone in South Park knew about him!”

Doctor Asshole make a non-committal hum and basically _leers_ at you over the rims of his glasses. “Ah, yes. Everyone in South Park - a town that’s long been under the sway of your Level 10 Cerebokenesis…”

You let out a frustrated noise. “Okay, stop right there. You’re not going to gaslight me into believing I have psychic powers.”

“I don’t need to, Kyle. I have three hundred pages of case studies on you written by the top scientists in the government’s secret Paranormal Investigation Unit.”

You cannot stop your eyes from rolling. “Oh, brother.”

“Did you know that Astronomers have definitively proved that the planet Plymouth doesn’t exist? That entire incident was precipitated by your frustration at having seen a single episodes of Ancient Aliens.”

“I’m not listening to this.”

“That’s only the tip of the iceberg. What a coincidence that it was the lead singer of _your_ favorite band that came to save your hometown from Mecha-Streisand. What about characters from your friend Eric Cartman’s Christmas story suddenly being sighted in woods near South Park? And the many, many powerful minds you have changed with just a few pithy words, including how easily you diffused that clusterfuck with Muhammad and the celebrity terrorists.”

“You’re cherry-picking.”

“Kyle - do you really think that the living advertisement Leslie Meyers sought you out because your public speaking skills are _so_ phenomenal? She sensed it - your supernatural power to change minds. Or did you think she _liked_ you.”

“I… I didn’t think that that at all…” Okay, you did, but you were nine fucking years old.

“Do I need to go on?”

He really doesn’t, because your head is beginning to hurt. Your vision starts to splinter out, and then -

\- the fucking _thing_ on your head lets out an ear-splitting bleep, and _shocks_ you.

“Ow! What the _fuck_!?”

“That’s the Vertex Synthesizer doing its job. You just tried to use your powers on me.”

“No I didn’t, because I don’t _have_ any powers.”

“The longer you remain in denial, Kyle, the longer we have to spend in this room going over the same incidents from your past.”

Okay, _okay_. You curl your hands around the arms of the chair. The restraints are really chafing the shit out of your wrists. You get dry skin in the winter as it is - the leather’s gonna leave welts that’ll last for days.

“Let’s say this is true,” you begin. “And I’m not saying that it is, but for the sake of conversation, _if_ it were true that I had -” you can barely get it out. “ _Psychic. Powers_ … what does the government want with me? Is this just standard procedure before you put me in front of a firing squad, or stick me in an underground cell for the rest of my life?”

“Oh, of course not, Mr. Broflovski. You’re far too valuable for that.”

That gets your full attention. You stare wide eyed at your captor as he says the next thing, the thing you definitely don’t want to hear. “I meant it when I said earlier that you were a guest. The world is such a chaotic place. Don’t you think that the US Government has need for a young man with such a useful talent?”

Nope. No. Not again. Never again. You are _finished_ with the President, the Vice President, the whole fucking administration, you don’t care if it’s true or not.

“That’s not going to happen. I’d r-rather -” you swallow something thick down your throat. You really mean it when you spit out: “I’d rather _die_.”

Doctor Boring-S-Name chuckles. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not you that we would kill.” There’s a big, stupid, red button on the table. He presses it and says: “Tom, bring in Plan D.”

‘Tom’ comes back in, carrying a semi-automatic rifle in one hand and your smartphone in the other. He eyes you warily as he unstraps one of your arms and hands your the phone.

You look at Tom, at the phone, at the doctor. What’s the angle here?

“Go on,” says Doctor Douchebag. “Take it. I know how kids these days are about their phones.”

So you do. On the other end is your little brother, sounding uncharacteristically panicked.

“Kyle? Kyle, is that you?”

You stop breathing for a moment. They wouldn’t seriously stoop to threatening your family, would they? Can the American government really do this? Have things gotten that bad?

“Ike?” you stutter out, panicking as well. “Ike! Are you okay? Are mom and dad okay? What’s going on!?”

Ike’s breathing evens out at the sound of your voice. “Oh, thank Moses,” he sighs, meaning the eternal energy being that serves as central processing unit to the Super Best Friends, not the literal historical figure. “Everything’s fi - actually, everything’s shit. But I’ve got a handle on it.” 

You can hear him typing up a storm as he talks to you. He’s super calm now. How nice for him; you’re still freaking out. There’s a fundamental different in your dispositions here that often makes you wonder how you’re even related until you remember: oh wait, you literally aren’t.

So while you keep on breaking out in cold sweat, Ike’s gone from ‘bereft’ to ‘cackling’ in ten seconds flat. “I can’t believe the FBI was stupid enough to put me on the phone,” he crows. “Okay, I need you to react like I’m telling you bad news. Don’t do or say anything suspicious. This call is being tapped, but I’ve put a voice modulator on my end of the line so they’ll only hear what I want them to hear. Now say: _‘I can’t believe it! In our house_!?’”

“Oh no!” you say performatively. “I can’t believe it! In our house!?”

“You’re probably wondering when I picked up hacking, and the answer is last summer when I got really bored with my pre-Calc exercises and needed a side-hobby. Don’t worry about it - I’m a genius. Now say: ‘ _Oh no_!’ again.”

 _Oh my God, Ike_. It’s not even that he’s full of himself, but does he always have to remind everyone how smart he is at every opportunity? “Oh… no,” you say, less performatively, keeping one eye on Tom the guard. He still looks like he’s gonna piss his pants if you make a particularly vigorous facial expression within ten feet of him. Damn, they really buy _hard_ into the psychic shit.

“The FBI are setting up some kind of smart-app in our home security system,” Ike says. “I don’t have time to explain how it works, but we’re under house arrest and it’s basically a murder-grid so they can selectively pick us off if you don’t cooperate. I’ve already cracked the system, though. I’ll have to lay low in the subroutines for a day or two, but we’re going to be fine.”

What the actual fuck. You lick your lips. They’re so chapped that a chunk of skin comes off just from a light prodding. You use your teeth to tear.

“Okay. This time, ask me a question. Whatever you want to know.”

 _Oh_. “A-are… are my friends okay?”

“Yeah, they’re fine. Um, well - Stan’s losing his mind, predictably. I told him that he should tell the FBI that you guys were on the outs. If they knew how close you two were... well, they’d be installing the murder-app at his house too. And I can’t promise to protect him with, y’know… the way Mr. Marsh is.”

You frown. Yeah - that’s probably for the best. But Stan’s a terrible liar. Your gut and heart both give an ugly wrench at imagining him trying to pretend that you guys don’t mean the world to each other. “I’m… glad to hear that,” you say, fakely. Well, you are glad that Stan’s safe. Not about all the other stuff.

“You’re also probably wondering how I know so much about what’s happening to you. It would take too long to explain, and also I don’t think you’ll believe it. Kenny will tell you everything when he finds you.”

“Wait, what?”

“Shhh! Don’t say anything suspicious, remember! Listen - I got in touch with my contacts in the Canadian Underground. At exactly five after midnight tonight one of them is going to spring you out of there, so be ready. After that, you’ll have to -” Ike’s explanation is cut short by a glass-shattering scream that you are _100% certain_ belongs to your mother.

You don’t need to fake this reaction. “What the hell is going over there, Ike?” Lowkey, you’re less afraid that she’s hurt and more afraid that she’s finally killed someone.

“I… I think mom just got tased!”

“Oh my God!”

“Don’t worry - she gave as good as she got. Kyle, I wish you had seen it - the guy who came to our door to tell us that they’d taken you… mom clocked him out in one punch. It’s was incredible.”

You clutch the phone so hard your knuckles turn white. “Ike. This is very important - you have to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed, okay. You have to make sure she _controls her temper_ , because dad’s not gonna do it.”

It takes Ike a moment to reply. There’s a couple layers peeled off the skin of his impenetrable confidence. “Ye… y-yeah.”

Doctor Fuckoff taps his watch impatiently.

“Ike - they’re cutting me off.”

Ike stops typing finally. “I love you, big brother. I’m gonna get you out of this, somehow.”

You’re totally not tearing up. “Ike... I love you too. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Always. Oh - wait. I had one more very important question before they take you away. Just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

“Y-yeah?”

He doesn’t even have the decency to whisper it. “Are you and Cartman dating or what?” 

You abruptly stop tearing up. “... what.”

“I mean, I’m just saying: there’s nothing wrong if you are. You two are well-matched - both intellectually and in temperment. It’s simple mathematics.”

You pull the phone away from your face. “Oh no, Ike! They’re cutting me off again!”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Kyle.”

“They’re literally tearing the phone out of my hand! They’re throwing it on the floor and smashing it to pieces! It’s horrible!”

“I think it’s cute!” Ike shouts as you hang up on him.

Fucking Doctor Fucking Smith is giving you a leery look. He reaches out to take your phone, eyeing the lock screen with tangible suspicion. “That conversation had a very unusual and dramatic end to it, don’t you think?”

You laugh nervously. “Well, you know how kid brothers are!”

“I’m an only child, actually.”

“Of course you fucking are,” you mutter.

Doctor Smith snaps his fingers and Tom-the-guard jumps. “I think we’re finished here. Take Mr. Broflovski to his quarters and make sure he’s fed.”

But not clothed, you notice.

Tom kneels down to free your legs from the chair and you repeat ‘ _five after midnight_ ’ over and over in your head, like some dumb, new-age meditation mantra. Last time it was five after midnight, Eric fucking Cartman was trying to blackmail you into agreeing to marry him. You tumble these two events around in your head for a bit, contrast them against each other trying to determine which is worse.

Of course this is fucking _worse_! Cartman wasn’t threatening to murder your entire family! Although to be fair, it’s _entirely_ possible that he could have worked himself up there eventually. You wouldn’t want to underestimate him. Next time he brings it up, you’ll give him a bit more rope and watch him hang himself from the nearest stairwell. It’s been a while since he’s been let off the leash that ‘ _the potential of maybe getting his dick stroked at some point during the next thirty days_ ’ has amazingly put him on.

“Wh-what’s with the weird look, kid?” Tom asks you, all fragile and jittering. You realize that you’re smirking to yourself as he leads you down the endless maze of identical, white hallways.

“Oh nothing,” you say in a perfectly flat tone. “I’m just thinking about the last conversation I had with my -” actually, you can’t stop it: you start to crack up. “W-with my… my -” you’re laughing so hard that you have to cradle your gut with both arms. Tom is giving you a look like he’s finally seen what hell looks like. You bark out the end of the sentence, the best joke you’ve ever heard: “The last conversation I had! With my _boyfriend_!”

Like a good little _“Reluctant Patron”_ , you laugh your ass off all the way to your cell.

_A city on fire. A robot arm. Half a dozen kids huddling in the shadow of a burnt-out office building. Some of them are familiar - an accent you definitely recognize, a face you only sort of do. One of the kids is missing an eye. The hole in her face is dark and fathomless. In the dream, she turns to look at you and the hole begins to glow red. You can see yourself, bleeding on the floor, but no one seems to care. Which is what you should have expected, really. No one showed up to your last birthday party so you why should they call a doctor to save your life? which is, if we’re all bein’ honest, a whole lot more trouble than coming to a birthday party. The girl with the red eye is staring at you so intently that your whole head begins to heat up, like your brain is boilin’ away inside it. You scream and clutch it in both hands. It feels like you’re gonna die. You -_

Butters gasps awake, sweaty and confused. He’s still in Hell’s Pass- not the psych ward, but a bed in his own private room. There’s an IV pinched in his arm and he’s got a pain so bad in his head he thinks for a moment that his dream might have been real. He's bandaged all along his forehead.

No - the dream _was_ real. He doesn’t know how or why, but he feels the same way he did after his last sojourn to Imaginationland: all worn out deep in the bones, even though he might have not even left his bed. It’s not a feeling someone ever forgets.

“M-mom? Dad?”

He asks for them automatically, but he knows they’re not there. Before he was at the hospital he was at the police station with Eric all day, so he’d have to hit his head way harder than he did to earn his parents’ forgiveness.

Who _is_ there - when he finally gets the energy to pull himself up and look - is Kenny, sitting with one leg hitched up over his knee and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He’s reading an issue of _People_! magazine so old that it’s got Kylie Jenner on the cover. Kenny glances up from the magazine and gives Butters a little nod. Oh - oh _no_ , Butters thinks, he’s _so cool_.

Butters sniffs back a snot bubble and fiddles with the hem of his blanket. “Oh… Ken… you were worried about me…”

Kenny lights up the cigarette and takes a long, thoughtful drag. “Our parents kicked us out for the night so they could do meth,” he says, exhaling a thread of smoke. “Also: no food in the house and the cafeteria’s free for visitors.”

The door swings open and Kenny’s little sister Karen comes in, carrying a plate with nothing but mashed potatoes and ketchup on it. She’s so skinny that she always wears her winter coat indoors and two whole layers of mittens. 

Karen hands Kenny a bag of twizzlers and he ruffles her hair. Her eyes light up when she sees Butters sitting up in bed. “Leopold, you didn’t die!” she says, with a sunniness that would be infectious at any other time.

Butters rubs the back of his neck. “Aw, yeah -s-sure looks that way.”

Kenny pulls a crumpled 5 dollar bill out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Hey, why don’t you go get him an apple juice and a bag of ringolos? He and I have something we need to talk about alone.”

Karen nods and goes back the way she came, taking her mashed potatoes with her. Instead of saying the thing he apparently wants to say, Kenny starts staring at Butters again, in that way he does that kind of makes a guy feel like he’s under the Spanish Inquisition.

So Butters runs a nervous hand through his hair and breaks the ice. “Look, I have no idea what happened in that waitin’ room, but I just had the strangest dream. I saw… a city burnin’... someone else’s memories… a bunch of kids like us huddlin’ in an old ruin. An’... I think I saw King Douchebag. Except she was older - our age, but still wearing one of her pretty wigs. I…” he starts to roll the thin, hospital blanket up between his hands. “This is gonna sound real foolish, but I think it… it might’a been somethin’ like a… _psychic vision_.”

“Yeah,” Kenny says. “It was.”

Butters squeaks. “Y-you mean… I’ve got psychic powers now? Oh geeze...” This kind of thing never goes well for him.

Kenny shoots him down immediately: “No.”

“O-oh. You sound awful certain about that, Kenny.”

“You’re not psychic Butters. But you pissed one off pretty bad.”

“Wh-what?”

Butters stares at Kenny. Kenny stares back. Butters stares some more. Kenny’s better at it, so Butters gives up and asks the correct probing question, even though it sounds incredibly dumb when said aloud.

“… _Kyle_?”

Kenny doesn’t reply. He sort of raises one hand, however, in a tactful, but apologetic gesture. 

“You mean… you’re tellin’ me… stuffy ol’ Kyle Broflovski is a psychic, an’ he tried to psychically murder me, on account of the fact I was yellin’ at him over what a hypocrite he’s been?”

Kenny nods.

Butters sighs and slumps down into the bed, so deep that he hopes the scratchy cushions will swallow him right up. “Oh boy. I think I wanna go back to sleep now.”

Kenny gets up and tosses the magazine over his shoulder. “Too bad. We have to go.”

“Wh-what? Go where?”

“Right about now, Kyle’s getting busted out of captivity. I know the folks doing the springing, but they keep their location a secret. However -” Kenny comes over and pokes Butters in right between the eyes. “- you’ve got a map in your head, Butters. You and me... we're going to Canada.”

Butters rubs at the place where Kenny poked him. His head is pretty tender, so the jab felt much harder than it actually was. “N-now wait just a minute. You’re already assumin’ I’m going along with this, but I haven’t agreed yet, an’ to be honest I’m not sure why I _would_ wanna stick my neck out for someone who tried to kill me a lil’... only a lil’ over four hours ago, by my count.”

Kenny’s smile is very soft. He sets one hand on the bed and leans over so that he’s close enough Butters can see the corners of his mouth peek out from under the edge of his scarf. “Because I asked nicely?”

Butters doesn’t even like boys, but his heart never fails to do a little backflip when Kenny McCormick looks at him like that. It’s so unfair, how long his eyelashes are, and how good he is at _fluttering_ them in just the right way so that he looks all sweet and vulnerable, even though he’s the toughest person Butters knows.

“Ahhhrrrrrgghhh -” Butters puts a pillow over his face so he doesn’t have to look at Kenny’s big, blue doe eyes while he makes his decision. On one hand, to be entirely honest: f- _fuck_ Kyle. On the other hand? Did he really deserve to die? No, probably not. Butters sighs for a very long time. “Okay… I’ll do it," he says, peeling the pillow off his face. "But not for him - it’s because you’re bein’ so gosh-darned polite about it! I'd have to be a real asshole to say no after you waited up to make sure I was alright.”

“Yeah!! I knew I could count on you!” Kenny claps his hands together and starts gathering up Butters’ things: his clothes, his backpack, the entire set of breaking-and-entering tools he’d been holding on to for Eric while Eric was scaling up to the second story of the Broflovski’s place...

This might be kinda nice, Butters starts thinking to himself. Sure, he’s got a hole in his head, and his parents are gonna be absolutely pipin’ hot _livid_ when he gets home, but it’s been years since he did a road-trip with Kenny, who is the best person in South Park to go road tripping with by a wide mile. Certainly a lot better than road-tripping to Mexico with Eric again, which is what he’d already planned on doing with his day. Oh boy, that would have been an absolute disaster and Butters has no idea why he agreed to it in the first place, except that saying ‘no’ to Eric Cartman is always more trouble than it’s worth. A chance to do some good with Kenny at his side? Well, that was worth more than the individual sum of it's parts, those parts being the specific reason for the do-gooding. _Ah yes_ , he grins to himself. _Just me an’ Ken, blazin’ across the countryside like a couple of modern cowboys. It’s gonna be great_!

That’s when Kenny says: “Okay, I’m going to drop Karen off at her friends’ place, and then we just need to go get Cartman.”

Butters is so stunned that he gets hit in the face with his own boxers.

“Awww, _what_!?”

You’re in your cell for ten minutes when you realize that you have no idea how to be ‘ready’ for five after midnight when you have no _idea_ what time it is.

Okay - cell is kind of a disingenuous description. It’s more like a hospital room: small but comfortable, rock-hard mattress, no windows. There’s a bedside table with two drawers, a private toilet and a TV embedded in the wall. You flip it on, but the only channels are TLC’s Reality Show spinoff and the legally required 24-hour broadcast of the President’s most recent public address.

Seeing the President’s face makes you kinda pissed, which makes the stupid _thing_ on your head jolt you with electricity. It doesn’t hurt much more than a potent static shock, but your hair already looks stupid enough without frizzing it up more, so you sit in the corner of your bed and practice the calming techniques your middle school counselor made you memorize after you set the school book depository on fire over the antisemitic changes to the state history texts. _You should have gone through the proper channels_ , said the counselor. _The proper channels don’t exist anymore_ , you’d spit back. In a strange turn of fate, PC Principal had your back on it. That was before he went off the grid.

What a weird couple of years.

Your breathing exercises aren’t working. You flop down on the bed and bury your face in a pillow, just in case you need to scream into it.

The first six months of Mr. Garrison’s presidency had been categorically insane, partially - you acknowledge - because of some shit you did. But after that, things changed so slowly that people stopped noticing it. Not just the President’s crazy views getting gradually codified across the country - state-by-state, like a hand slowly creeping over the continent to slip under the nation’s balls and grope the taint - but really _weird_ shit, like what happened to California, or Microsoft signing a deal to produce killer cyborgs for the Secret Service, or Washington DC becoming a walled fortress. The list goes on and on:

Canada basically doesn’t exist anymore. People just _use_ nukes now. Shit they show on the History Channel is true, but everyone thinks it’s fake. Teens can get kidnapped by the government and have their families subjected to hyper-efficient, personalized assassination apps without there being any legal consequences. What the HELL is “ THE MACHINE”? 

Two years ago you got high for the first time with a couple of the guys and Tweek kept ranting about how the world was turning into a cyberpunk dystopia, until Kenny - dead eyed and staring straight ahead, legs crossed beneath him like some kind of burnout druggie buddha - whispered: “ _Dudes, we’re already living in the cyberpunk dystopia_.” That didn’t just shut Tweek up - it shut everyone up, because being high made it sound ten thousand times even more profound and also Tweek put way too much weed per ounce into the brownies. You’ll never forget the tone of voice in which Token uttered: _Holy shit_ before walking out of the room and not coming back.

And: Kenny’s usually right about these things. But, y’know, _The Simpsons_ is still on the air, so the world keeps turning, right?

You roll onto your back and sigh in frustration. “When the hell is it going to be five after midnight!?”

As if the universe is condescending to you, something falls out of the ceiling vent. A piece of paper - you scramble to catch it. It’s smudged filthy, stinks of liquor and is just a little bit cold. It says: _‘Step away from the bed unless you want to die._ ’

Wh… at?

After the day you’ve had, you choose to take the note literally. You can’t get away from the bed fast enough, pushing yourself up against the furthest wall. You stay like that for a few minutes, waiting for who knows what, until your ungracefully half-exposed ass starts to chafe from how fucking cold the wall is.

Just as you disengage your butt from the concrete, a scratching noise emerges from behind your bed. Quiet at first, then more persistent - like a raccoon scraping at the window. Or, in your case you suppose, like Cartman trying hard not to be noticed. _Click, click, CLANK_ , you hear and then the wall blows open.

You don’t dive for cover or anything, but you make a very gargled, high pitched noise and cover your face in time not to get specks of rock and dust up your nose. The bed goes flying across the room and would have totally smashed you against the wall if not for the total lucky coincidence of it hitting head-and-footer first. Instead it kind of pins you there full body for a couple of horrifying seconds before slamming harmlessly to the floor, right-side up and barely singed. You watch it fall with a hollowed out look you’re sure will stick with you for the rest of the night and take a second to really appreciate how much you love having a rib-cage that's not broken.

You climb over the bed just in time to meet your savior, who strolls out of the clearing smoke with the lazy gait of a professional. He’s older than you. Not like, Millennial old, but old enough to drink legally old. Tall, dark haired, unkempt, with sleepless circles under his eyes and a smattering of premature wrinkles. He raises a crumpled cigarette to his mouth and breathes in, looking a little like a thirsty drunk when he does so.

Wait a _goddamn second_.

He digs a dirt-stained list out of his pocket and squints at it. In a thick, french accent, he asks: “Are you… Ike Broflovski’s older brother?” 

_No. Fucking. Way._

“Wait, I know you!”

He tips his head to one side and takes another drag off his cigarette. “I... don’t think so.”

“Yes I do!” You point at him with unequivocal certainty. “You’re The Mole!”

He frowns. “... I might have been called zat once or twice in my life.”

“Dude I… I saw you _die_!”

He stares at you.

“I… held you in my arms. We sang this stupid little song together, and then you died.” You look at your hands. It’s an old memory, but it always makes them shake down to the bones. “I saw the light dim in your eyes. I actually _felt_ you breathe your last breath. It literally left you, like air coming out of a balloon. There was just… nothing left. I’d never seen anything like that before. I still think about it sometimes. I remember thinking that it was proof that the soul existed.”

You look up at him, searching for a hint of recognition. He just stares back with the same goddamn expression he had on before and sucks away on his cigarette. After about forty-five seconds, he puffs out a cloud of smoke that gets in your eyes and says: “Oh. You.”

 _Oh you_? Was that really the best he could manage? You open your mouth, not with a game plan or anything, probably just to say something reflexive and stupid. Mercifully, he cuts you off by pulling something out of his backpack and throwing it in your face. It’s your clothes. Well - not all of them: your pants, coat, boots and hat. No underwear still.

You look at your clothes, and then at him, gaping all dumb-like, because you are very confused and overwhelmed by this entire situation.

He talks to you like you’re a fucking moron. “What? Were you planning on making zis journey with your ass hanging out free to ze wind?”

That’s when you realize your hospital-gown got a little tangled up when you were jumping the bed. Half of it’s caught between your legs, showing off way more of your thigh than you would be comfortable with in any situation, let alone this specific one. You readjust it, and duck down to retrieve your clothes from the floor.

The Mole, he’s… still staring at you.

“... are you just gonna watch me change?” you ask, more snidely than you need to.

He jumps, eyes fluttering open in shock. Without saying anything, he spins on one heel to face the hole he crawled out of and lights himself another smoke.

Ha ha, you think. I’m not the most embarrassingly awkward person in the room after all.

Wait, no, no - you are not going to do this, Kyle. Don’t get combative with someone you just met. He just saved your hide, and you saw him die. Be positive, like Stan said. Be nice, like you’re always telling Cartman.

It’s really hard to be positive, you find, going commando while in the middle of one of the stupidest, most dramatic things that has ever happened to you. You predict that you’re about to do an assload of walking, but you can’t make the fucking seam of your zipper sit right no matter how much you fiddle with it.

“Are you decent yet?” The Mole asks after listening to you grumble for a while.

You sigh and leave it. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Good.” He produces a wrench and a tiny screwdriver out of one of the zillion pockets on his jacket and begins stalking towards you. “We don’t have much time.”

You hold your hands up and take a bit of a stumble backwards. Your legs hit the bed, so you don’t go very far. “Whoa, what are the tools for?”

He reaches out and pulls you to him by the Vertex Synthesizer. “We can’t go anywhere with zis rubbish on your head.” He turns your head so that he can do something with the screwdriver near the back of it. “It iz _very important_ that you do not move. I’ve removed many of zhese in ze past but one miztake and it will trigger a security protocol.”

“What does that do?”

He responds casually: “A miniature controlled blast zat will explode inzide your head and instantly kill you.”

“Wh-what!?” your voice gets a bit _screechy_ here, but can anyone blame you?

“I told you not to move!”

You don’t move. You don’t even fucking breathe. You’re getting a little dizzy and blue-faced when the crown of the device finally clicks open. The Mole hums, and hangs it off his belt.

“Now we can go,” he says, turning towards the exit without even a second glance at you.

“Wait a second -” you grab his arm to stop him and immediately regret it when he comes back around and rears up to loom over you. He’s a lot taller than you. Like, _unfairly_ taller than you, and has the thousand-mile stare of someone who’s died once before and has probably killed a lot more than one man.

You don’t back down however. “What’s going on? No one will explain anything to me.”

“It doez not matter.”

“Yes it does _matter_! Everyone else seems to know what this is all about, but I’m the one it’s happening to! Can’t you even tell me where we’re going?”

He blows some more smoke in your face. You scrunch up your nose and wince through it. “You don’t need to know.”

That’s _it_. “Oh fuck off I don’t need to know!” You… shove him. It’s got the effect of a bichon frise trying to pick a fight with a rottweiler. That’s what you feel like, right now. A small, yappy dog. “I’ve been kidnapped by the government! My family is being threatened! I just got sold a whole load of bullshit about how I apparently have psychic powers! I haven’t slept in nearly thirty six hours except to, I think, be in a coma! I probably have a concussion! And you didn’t even fucking bring me my underwear, so now I have to walk around God-knows-where _you’re_ so filthy from with a zipper chafing against my fucking dick! If one more person condescends to me about about what I _need_ , or what I _should_ do, I’m gonna -”

The Mole grabs you by both jacket lapels and slams you against the wall. 

“Lizten to me you little _shit_.” He shakes you a couple times. Your toes are barely grazing the floor. “You have two choices - you can stay here and find out “what’s going on”. Zhey will do things to you zat will have you crying above to a God zat does not exist to give you mercy, which also does not exist. And when you refuse to play along with them, zhey will vivisect you alive in an underground laboratory and sell your fucking entrails to China on ze black market! _Or_ \- you can stop asking so many fucking questions and come with me. Which is what you will do if you want to _fucking live_.”

He holds you there, just long enough for the neck of your hospital gown to start cutting into your skin, and for you to get a good whiff of how truly awful his breath smells. By the time he drops you, you're almost fucking dizzy from it: a combination of tobacco, liqueur and the things that lack-of-access-to-a-toothbrush does to your mouth.

He takes a shuddering hit off his cigarette and asks: “So… which iz it, Kyle Broflovski?”

Your eyes are pulled so wide they hurt. “I… think I’ll take… the option where I live.” 

“I thought so.” He picks your hat up off the floor and hands it to you. “Now - let’s go.”

He goes into the hole. You shove as much of your hair under your hat as you can and then jog to catch up with him. The chamber behind the wall is still filled with smoke and dust, so you have to shield your face with your forearm for the first leg of the trip. You’re in some kind of underground tunnel network - high-ceilinged, chilly; damp and crumbling from disuse. There’s a set of metal bars running down the hall in both directions. An old subway tunnel? Where the hell even are you? You can’t think of anywhere within three hundred miles of South Park that has a subway system. 

The Mole leads you around one corner, then another, then through another blown-out hole. He moves through the rubble confidently, but with a sort of twitchy bearing that belies extremely poor mental health. You accidentally kick a pebble into the wall and the sound of it makes him jump like someone fired a gun at him. It reminds you a bit of Tweek, actually, which is hilarious, and also makes you way less intimidated by him.

So after a few minutes - when your heart-rate's returned to normal - you say: “Okay - but you _seriously_ couldn’t have tried a little harder to find my underwear?”

Without looking back, he gives you the middle finger over his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blows a kiss to my roommate, who loves Kenny/Butters* That one whole paragraph was for you.


	4. Disenchantment and Truth I

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

“Heya, Eric! What’s so important you called me over first thing in the mornin'?"

Butters slams the door open with the same shameless, unfettered enthusiasm that he lets his pants droop to his ankles when he pees. Eric - who has been malingering in his room with the blinds shut and a blanket pinned over the window for eight days now - recoils at how much light he brings in with him.

“Jesus fuck, Butters. Close the door. My mom can’t know what we’re doing in here.”

Butters slides into the room and shuts the door, resting his back against it. “Aw geeze,” he simpers. “You sound horrible Eric. What’s going on?”

“I’m burning my hand off in hydrochloric acid. I’m going in without painkillers, so I need you on standby to attach this sweet ‘FBI Deathamatron Kung-fu Action Grip’ glove I got on sale from Amazon to my stump. Don’t worry, the acid will cauterize the wound, but you’ll have to work fast to make sure my body doesn’t reject the transplant.”

It takes Butters a moment to process this extremely logical statement. Which is fine: Eric doesn’t keep Butters around because he’s _smart_. He’s got other attributes - like unflinching obedience, Rainman-esque mathematical skills and a pathological aversion to tattling.

“Well, g-golly... I don’t think I should be helping people amputate themselves anymore. I got in an awful lot of trouble last time we…”

“Butters!”

Butters snaps to attention, like a soldier heeling to a drill sergeant.

“ _Butters_ ,” Eric presses his eyes shut. “Do you want me to die?”

It takes Butters another moment to process. A much, much longer one. Eric cracks an eye open and looks over his shoulder to see his _most loyal friend_ (besides Kenny, obviously) tapping his chin in a bout of genuinely deep contemplation regarding the subject of his imminent, dramatic death from the worst possible affliction.

Eric pulls his hand out of the acid jar and spins around on his heel. “What the _fuck_!? Do you seriously want me to die?”

Butters starts laughing nervously. “Ah ha, well - I mean, don’t take it personally or nothin’, Eric, but - I mean.” He holds his palms out helplessly. “I was just thinkin’ about it. It would sure make my life a whole lot easier.”

“I can’t fucking believe this. In my time of need I call you, _you_ Butters - the only person I trust in the _entire world_ \- to help save me from the most painful, humiliating death a person can face, and this is the way you repay my vulnerability?”

“Oh no, Eric, do you have the AIDs again?”

Eric bites his lip and runs a thumb over the knuckles of the offending appendage. “No, it’s worse. I have… Gingervitis…”

“You have… what?”

“Gingervitis!” Eric starts to pace, clamping his whole, sweaty palm around the diseased wrist. “I thought that it could only be transmitted congenitally, and only by pure blooded gingers, but I was wrong. Daywalkers carry the virus too, and Kyle carelessly infected me with it. I’m afraid it could be terminal. I can already feel the early stages of the disease spreading to my chest.”

Butters crosses the room so that he can peer closer at Eric’s face in the darkness.

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking… _what_ exactly did Kyle do?”

Thinking about the instigating event drums up a horrible, heat-stroke-hot flush in Eric’s cheeks. The sickness is spreading faster than he thought. With great and terrible solemnity, he whispers: “He… held my hand.”

Butters scrunches up his face. “He what?”

“For thirty seconds, he held my hand. I know what you’re thinking: that sounds totally gay, and it was, but I promise that it was _not_ consensual on my end. Kyle hand-raped me, for the sole purpose of contaminating my nubile, robust body with his crippling malady.” 

“Okay, Eric. That’s sounds pretty awful all right. What are your symptoms?” Butters has a quirk to his lip like he’s trying to stop himself from laughing. 

“I’m dizzy and flushed. Sweating constantly. Heart palpitations. I’ve nearly thrown up at least once a day thinking about it. I can’t -”

Eric passes a hand over his mouth, like he’s spitting invisible words into it. It’s a compulsion left over from his brief, misguided foray into the annals of fake-Tourettes-Syndrome.

“You can’t… what?”

Eric stares at his cupped hand, eyes wide. “- stop thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about Kyle holding my hand.”

Butters touches his shoulder. “But you ain’t grown any freckles, right?”

“No,” Eric replies. “We were both wearing mittens, but I keep remembering it like I was holding his actual palm. You know how Kyle has disgusting, dry skin in the winter and he never takes any of my advice about moisturizing and skin masks, right? He thinks that the skin care industry is a racket because he’s a cheap... fucking... Jew...” he trails off, thinking very hard about Kyle at lunch two weeks ago: his brows knit furiously and the bridge of his nose scrunched up as he applied Blistex to his visibly chapped lips. “What the fuck?” he whispers to himself as his heart skips a literal goddamn beat.

“Hmmm. Not to be presumptuous or nothin’, Eric, but it sure doesn’t sound like the symptoms you have match up to the diagnostic criteria of Gingervitis as you explained it to me.”

“Oh? Then what the fuck _does_ it sound like?”

“Hmmm, let’s see…” Butter stokes his chin. Taps his foot, mumbles along as he comes to his conclusion. “You ain’t got no freckles… your skin is clammy, but it’s not gettin’ paler… an’ every time you think about Kyle, you blush and your chest feels funny. Now, I may not know much about medical science, but I do know a thing or two about bein’ in love even when you don’t wanna feel that way. Especially when it’s unrequited. An’, er -” he stumbles over this last part. “Th-that’s what it sounds like to me, Eric. Like you’re… in love.”

“Looooooove?” Eric repeats slowly. The word hits him academically, with absolutely no emotional impact. He stares straight ahead, at the spot on his wall where the paint is darker because it used to be covered by a Terrance & Phillip poster. It had only been a few months since the government was finally able to confiscate all Canadian pop cultural ephemera in small towns like South Park. That, like most things, was also the fault of Kyle fucking Broflovski.

 _Of course_ , Eric thinks, why would he ever assume that Kyle had infected him with something as simple and clear-cut as fucking _Gingervitis_. Butters looks suddenly terrified that he’s said something over the line. Which he has. But what he’s said is not necessarily _untrue_.

“Er, E-Eric. Are you… doin’ okay?” Butters’s voice is practically warbling. “I’m just tellin’ you my honest assessment of the situation, so I hope you’re not all miffed off at me.”

“I’m fine, Butters,” Eric replies tonelessly. “Better than fine, in fact. If you’re right and what I have is “love” instead of Gingervitis, then the cure is even simpler than I thought.”

“... cure?” 

Eric slams his fist into his palm and wheels around, expressions suddenly fierce and manic. He starts whirling about his room, pulling spare Nintendo wires out from under his desk and popping open the false-bottom to the top drawer where he keeps his the duplicate key to his mother’s closet that he had made shortly after she locked him out of it for ‘ _misusing her cattle-prod, which is only to be used by professionals sweetums_ ’.

“Butters, I need you to go distract my mom while I steal something from her closet. Do whatever you have to do to keep her from coming upstairs - sing, dance, if you have to fuck her that’s fine, I give you my full permission.”

“Um. what?” says Butters.

“Listen - I learned from an old rerun of ‘3-2-1 Contact’ that “love” is just a chemical reaction in the brain, meaning that it can be counteracted through scientific means. My mom was given an old ECT machine by one of her clients a couple years ago and I don’t think she ever got rid of it. If you keep her busy, I can route it up through my old Wii U’s AC adaptor and electrocute myself back to sanity!”

“I, uh, don’t really think that’s necessary Eric…” Butters tries to catch him by the arm, but gets shoved aside when Eric turns to shout at him.

“How _isn’t_ it necessary?” he roars. “Do you think I should _live_ like this!? In “love”? With a hideous, self-righteous, nagging, stingy, obsessive-compulsive, red-headed _Jew_ with no ass and dormant Jersey genes just waiting to rear their ugly head at the slightest provocation!?”

Instead of being cowed by this show of aggression, Butters starts laughing. “Oh, Eric - it’s not necessary because _everyone knows_ love chemicals only last seven years!” 

Eric narrows his eyes. “... explain.”

“What’s there to explain? Love’s a chemical, sure, but it only lasts long enough to ensure a man will, _well_ , y’know - plant his seeds in a woman’s garden, so to speak. It’s like the complimentary instinct to hypergamy! That’s why everyone calls it the seven year itch, an’ why everyone’s parents hate each other!”

Butters slings a cheerful arm around Eric’s shoulder. Eric bristles under the extremely uninvited contact, but doesn’t move away. He’s too busy staring at his hand: the one he was about to sacrifice to satisfy a horrible, dark hunger that apparently could simply be outrun. Wouldn’t Kyle have fucking _loved_ that.

He runs a thumb down the center of his palm, where he can still feel the ghost of Kyle’s blunt nails through the yarn of his mitten. “So you mean that if I just wait this out for seven years, I _don’t_ have to electrocute myself or burn my hand off?”

Butters leans their heads together. “I don’t even think you have to wait that long,” he says. “I mean, haven’t you been in love with Kyle for years now? At least since third grade, I reckon. That’s what everyone says, at least.”

Eric goes rigid. “Who says that?”

Butters feels the tension under his arm and flinches. “Er, everyone?” he titters nervously, pulling his arm away from Eric’s back. 

He doesn’t move fast enough. Eric grabs him by the front of his shirt and yanks him up on his tiptoes “Who _specifically_ said it?”

“Uhh, Craig -” Butters stutters.

“Fucking gay fucking Craig.”

“ - an’ Kenny. An’ Jimmy, Wendy, Clyde, Bebe, Token, Kevin Stoley, a bunch of the eighth graders who saw you guys get in a screamin’ match about our class assignment on ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ once, uh Mr. Mackey too... they have a bettin’ pool going an’ everything. Well, I mean Mr. Mackey told them to shut the bettin’ pool down at first on account that underage gambling is illegal, but when he found out what it was for he changed his mind and put twenty bucks on -”

“Enough!” Eric drops Butters so suddenly that he falls on his ass like the incompetent that he is.

Third grade. What the fuck happened in third grade? Eric wanders to the other side of his bedroom and pulls aside the blanket covering his window. He winces when the sunlight hits his face. _Third_ fucking grade? Something about that doesn’t seem right. The volcano, the war reenactment, Chef’s shitty fiance, Mecha-Streisand, the American-Canadian War… the first time Eric remembers feeling really and truly _weird_ about Kyle was -

Was -

“Seven years, hmm? In third grade, I turned eight, so eight plus seven is… eight plusssss seven issssss…”

“Fifteen.” Butters offers.

“Shut up Butters, I’m thinking!” Eric runs a hand through his hair and then presses the heel of his plam between his eyes. That’s manageable. Fifteen is totally manageable. Nothing cool happens to anyone until they turn fifteen anyway, that’s the anime rule. “So I just have to wait three more years until I’m fifteen. And if I still feel like this in three years…”

“What’ll you do in that case?”

Eric presses his face up against the glass so that he can glance sideways down the street. It’s about 10AM on a holiday which means that - like clockwork - Kyle is out shoveling the driveway and looking adorably put-upon about it. His eyebrows all cartoonishly slanted, his cheeks puffed out and raked red from the cold, obviously caught up in some internal monologue about how if his parents _really cared_ about “responsibility” and “self improvement” they’d give him an allowance for all the chores they make him do. Eric can imagine how much redder his face would get if it were pointed out to him that looking for an elevated financial angle in something necessary like basic household upkeep is rather _Jewy_ of him, _isn’t it_? Kyle gets so deliciously, unattractively splotchy when he’s angry; a particular, feverish shade of crimson reserved just for Eric and _no one else_.

Eric sucks in a sharp breath. “If I still feel like this in three years…” he says, “I’ll have no choice but to take drastic measures. But until then, I can stop worrying about it. I’m sure that now I’ve got it under control, it will have absolutely no effect on my life whatsoever.”

**(THE NEXT THREE YEARS)**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Do you like it, sweetums?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure, mom, I -” Eric squishes the cake under his fork and spreads it around the plate. “It’s… tolerable?”

It’s rainbow cake with a bubblegum glaze, stuffed with M&Ms. Eric can’t get it down at all, because his throat is bruised so sore that swallowing anything thicker than a glass of milk is agony. But it’s good agony. Potentially _constructive_ agony. 

He’s _thinking_ : about how in preschool Miss Claridge, before the accident, used to get Tom Johansen to come down to the school and serve the class ice cream once a week at recess. Eric always got bubblegum ice cream, because bubblegum ice cream rocks, and also because Tom Johansen - a man not known for fucking around when it came to sweets (but, after his brief stint in Park County prison, now known for fucking up shoplifters) - put real deal chunks of Double Bubble into every scoop. Eric spent two months methodically eating around the gum, pocketing it, hiding it all at the back of his cubby beneath a tented copy of _The Rainbow Fish_ that he never once opened for reading purposes.

His master plan? One afternoon during nap-time he snuck the entire stash into his sleeping bag. He waited until everyone else was asleep and then he chewed through all thirty-two pieces and stuck them one at a time into Kyle’s hair. _All_ the way into his hair too, none of that pussy “just set it on the surface and hope for the best” shit. Kyle has wiry, coarse hair with thick roots: the perfect texture for bonding directly to bubblegum on an atomic level. It took over an hour for Miss Claridge to cut the mess out, shearing such huge chunks off his head that the playroom floor looked like someone'd murdered a whole car-full of clowns and sewn themselves a shag carpet out of their scalps. Mrs. Broflovski, naturally, threw a nuclear level fit.

And Kyle didn’t even _cry_ , which is what Eric had really wanted to see. Typical: Kyle Broflovski was born with his stupid, Jewy nose stuck up in the air. It’s so fucking infuriating - that he can still act all noble, look so dignified, even when he’s suffering and defeated and humiliated - but it’s also the reason he’s the only - the _only_ -

What Kyle did do was that he stopped taking off his hat - during in school hours, while at home, while _sleeping_. Never learned to train himself out of his absurdly deep R.E.M. cycles though.

Eric jabs his fork into center of the cake and twists, gritting his teeth as he eviscerates the fondant guts. Kyle, Kyle, _Kyle_ \- it was supposed to have gotten better in three years, the horrible, gnawing, howling _emotion_ churning in his chest like a noxious sinkhole. But now it hurts to even think about him. It hurts to _look_ at him. It feels so much better to get left-hooked by him than it used to. Eric’s got a black eyed left over from their last fight, one so bad that Kenny actually fucking giggled when he saw it. _“Looks like you deserved that one, dude. More than usual, I mean.”_ Eric can’t stop prodding at it, at his split lip, at the ring of bruises hidden under his turtleneck. The pain sends little spikes of light up under his eyes. He rolls his thumb over the cut on his lip and pinches it between the nail and cuticle; it makes him nauseated. Is that what it would feel like to kiss Kyle? Jesus, you’d imagine getting off against a guy’s thigh would satiate at least some part that desire but no: he _absolutely_ has to kiss him. At least once.

He begins pressing a baked M&M beneath the tines of his fork. He crushes it good and slow, relishes the way the candy coating splits apart in little spiderweb patterns. The chocolate oozes out from between the fissures, all melty and congealed.

In theory, it would be pretty easy to kiss Kyle. Kyle would sleep through the apocalypse. The lock on his window isn’t as foolproof as he thinks. He doesn’t double-check his drinks after going to the bathroom even though Eric’s drugged him, like, twelve times. So, theoretically it’s doable. But somehow none of Eric’s daydreams about this ever get past the “tying him up in the basement” part. First of all: it’s kind of immature. Very Middle School. Very 1990s airport novel. Second of all… it’s wrong. It feels _wrong_. Not morally, just…

Physically, it seems like an impossible task to kiss Kyle against his will, what with his gigantic honker and his face that’s constructed entirely from 45 degree angles; his chin, his cheekbones, his elbows - all the lines of his body are getting sharper every day. He’s got this impenetrable aura around him, like an offended porcupine. Like touching him would produce the same results as running your thumb down the sharp edge of the knife. Literally that, ‘cause every time Eric’s tried, he’s ended up bleeding.

So what he has to do…

What he _has_ to do is -

“Eric? Honey?” Eric’s snapped out of his fantasizing when his mother slides an arm around his shoulders. “Are you okay? It’s not like you to skip dessert.”

He considers telling her to fuck off, but he’s been making a concentrated effort to be “nicer” to her lately because Kyle - _fucking Kyle_ \- mentioned that she seemed “sad and lonely”.

He sighs and shoves the mutilated cake across the table. “I’m fine, mom! I just don’t like -” _feeling like this all the time, like I have to wait and work for the things I want and still they won’t -_ “- this fucking audiobook. It’s pissing me off.”

Liane pulls back and places a finger over her pursed lip, looking as genuinely wounded about this as she does about basically everything. “Oh dear - I’m sorry poopsiekins. I thought you loved the 50SLU. I was so excited to listen to this with you after what a difficult school year you’ve had…”

She’s playing the audiobook of _Fifty Shades: Cocked and Reloaded_ , the newest release from Disney's reboot of the #50ShadesLiteraryUniverse. And yeah, at one point Eric was pretty into it... when he had no fucking friends! (5th Grade) ( _also_ Kyle's fault). He was intrigued by the concept of having an ambiguous profession that generated billions of dollars a year and in which everyone around you had to cater to your trauma-derived fetishes. The original fanfic title of _Fifty Shades of Grey_ was ‘Master of the Universe’. Only, that was a fucking misnomer, because -

“Christ, mom, I’m not eleven years old anymore. Next you’re gonna inquire how Tom Brady’s career is doing, or ask me what happened to my Wellington Bear pajamas. I grew out of all those stupid things, just like I grew out of Fifty Shades!”

“Well, Eric, how am I supposed to understand what’s going on in your life if you don’t talk to me about it?” she tut-tuts, scooping up the cake plate and Eric’s discarded utensils on her way to the sink. She shuts off the audiobook. “I remember everything that happened with Tom Brady after the last election. But I thought Christian Grey was your new hero?”

The noise the fork makes scraping against the plate reminds Eric of chickenbones grinding against each other in a garburator. That’s how he feels lately, like something is grinding his ribcage to dust. He grits his teeth together and says: “Christian Grey… is a pussy.”

Liane looks at him over her shoulder. Eric sets a fist on the table, gesticulating as he rants.

“He’s got all this power and money. He’s obsessed with being in charge and gets pissy every time some peon doesn’t metaphorically lick his boots the moment he walks into a room - and they _do_ lick his boots, which _should_ be fucking sweet! But what does he do with all that? Lords it over a complete fucking non-entity like Anastasia. She’d get bent over by the fucking wind, but we’re supposed to think he’s some sexy, domineering Adonis just for making her cream her panties to some light slapping!”

“I think that the intended subtext of the series,” his mother hums, clinking the dishes together in the soapy water, “is that Christian Grey is actually very weak. That’s the part that’s supposed to make him attractive, sweetie.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s still fucking dumb. The reader is still supposed to be getting off on how this guy’s all commanding and dominant, but why the hell would you ever be satisfied exerting control over something that wasn’t worth conquering!? Unless... unless he was a huge, fucking, grade A, _pussy ass_ douchebag.”

Liane stares at him for a minute, blinking her long, mascara caked lashes as she contemplates what her son has just said to her. Then she lets out a birdsong titter and comes over to place a kiss on the crown of his head.

“Oh, oh _my_ \- my baby really _is_ growing up, isn’t he?” She laughs and tugs at the hem of his turtleneck, revealing the dark, purple marks underneath. Eric yanks away so fast that the chair creaks under his weight and tips right fucking over. He hits the kitchen floor, elbow first, with a yelp.

“MoooOOOOOM! What the fuck?”

His mother fluffs his shoulders and checks him over for boo-boos: “Don’t worry, poopsie, I’m sure you’ll find a nice girl to Dom you soon enough. There’s all kinds in this world, after all!”

Yeah, there are all kinds in this world. That’s the fucking problem, that Eric is only able to look at one of them. And it’s really cramping his style, dedicating so much processing energy to useless, Kyle-based sexual schemes. It’s been a while since Butters has gotten grounded, no one’s bullied Kevin Stoley in months and Wendy’s _planning to run completely uncontested_ for the renewal of her Student Council position. There are pies that need thumbs put into them, un-fired irons just laying around all over town, and all Eric can think about is how he can get choked again. This shit is why Butters swore off women back in elementary school. It really is like having your balls in a vice - no, worse than that: it’s like having your balls sheathed in a chinese finger trap made of shark teeth. The only way to get out with intact testicles is to get closer. Seriously, what’s the point of that? Where does this train of thought lead a man?

Well.

Apparently it leads you to: 48 hours in therapy, locked up in the Psych Ward instead of breezing down the NAFTA Superhighway towards the Mexican Border Wall.

But that’s fine - Eric’s got it under control. It’s basically nothing to get the entire psych staff under his thumb the moment that Doctor Pradesh finishes her weekend shift. Eric’s not locked in here with them; they’re locked in here with _him_. Kyle will get his pound of metaphorical flesh, but he’ll get it on _Eric’s terms_.

Which is exactly what he’s about to explain to his first official visitor:

“Ah, Mysterion. Welcome to my new headquarters. Despite all your protestations, I see that you’ve come to seek out my aid once again. I hope the nurses saw you in without giving you any trouble.”

“I’m here to bust you out, you absolute, fucking moron.”

**ONE MONTH AGO**

_“Fucking fuck fucking Butters. This is, what, the fifth time his inability to get laid has nearly gotten us all killed? I’m going to fucking kill him this time, I’m seriousl -”_

_“Can you shut up? I’m trying to get a mobile signal up here.”_

_“Me talking isn’t interrupting the non-existent satellite signal, Kyle.”_

_“Yeah, but it’s pissing me the hell off, so stop it.”_

_“GoooOOOOD! I hate North Park!” Cartman kicks something behind you. A chunk of tree bark goes flying by the periphery of your vision, but you don’t take your eyes off the top bar of your cell-phone. You’ve got all your apps turned off and the backlight down to 1%, but your battery is still running on fumes._

_You hate North Park too, but not as much as you hate being lost on top of a mountain with no way to tell anyone where you are and no company besides Eric Cartman. You wish you could be more mad at Butters, but he didn’t mean for his iphone waifu app to fall in love with him and conglomerate all the other waifu apps in the area into a single mega-AI during the South Park at North Park football semi-final. That’s just the kind of thing that happens to Butters Stotch with alarming frequency. And who knew so many football players were that lonely?_

_Something hits the back of your head. It could be anything - just a clump of snow or a twig caught in the wind, but it keeps hitting, over and over again in an erratic rhythm. Yup - Cartman is definitely throwing pebbles at you because he’s basically five years old._

_You spin around to glare at him. “What do you want!?”_

_“Stop wasting your battery life, asshole.”_

_“I just said that I’m trying to get a signal so that we can call for help and maybe not freeze to death on this fucking mountain.”_

_Cartman laughs and brushes past you, sweeping an arm out over the empty landscape as he walks. “Yeah, but we’re nowhere near where the satellite coverage kicks in, so cool it for ten minutes until we hit the treeline Nervous Nelly.”_

_You grit your teeth hard enough that it hurts. Yeah, you don’t miss the casual anti -semitism, but you could also live without the endless litany of feminine, workaround nicknames. “How the hell do you know that?”_

_“Cause I paid attention when we ran up this ridge, Kyle. And -” he grins at you over his shoulder and taps the space between his eyes. “I’ve got a mind like a steel trap. Photographic memory, brah.”_

_You roll your eyes. “I know that’s not true.”_

_“Whatever. When you kill your phone you’ll be all like ‘Oh ~_ Eric _, I should never have doubted you, and also that slut from North Park never texted me after all’. Sorry to say but they never do, Kyle.”_

_You stop walking. “What?” Your voice comes out breathy and hard-edged all at once._

_Cartman stops too, because he can’t _help_ himself from either heeling against or rising to any hint of aggression in your tone. Usually both at once. He tilts around to meet your eyes and tries to laugh with what you can now recognize as fake-confidence; he’s always been so fucking jealous - of you and Stan, of other people’s happiness, of someone having a single scoop of ice cream more than him. “Isn’t that why you’re glued to your fucking phone more than usual? Not often that hot, hymeneal bitches are just throwing themselves at you. Not since your nose got all -” he makes a triangle with his thumb and forefinger. A huge one._

_You shut your eyes. Deep breath. Count to te - “Is that why you followed me up this ridge when we were trying to escape? To pick a fight with me over a girl?”_

_“I don’t know, Kyle. You tell me - is there something to pick a fight about?”_

_You slip your phone into your pocket. “I don’t even remember her name.”_

_“Nancy,” Cartman supplies instantly. “Wow, you were seriously going fuck her without even knowing her name? You really have changed.”_

_“I -” you suck in a whistling breath, bite the inside of your mouth._ Don’t get shrill _, you tell yourself. “I wasn’t going to sleep with her,” you sigh. “Obviously. I wasn’t even going to go out with her. Not until you started up with this bullshit. Now -” you tap his shoulder with the back of your hand as your walk by. “Now, I might just do it.”_

_Cartman blanches. “Wh-what -?” he stumbles and nearly trips trying to catch up with you._

_“Well, I mean - she gave me her number. It’d be rude not to text her the minute I get home, right?”_

_“Kyle - Kyle, Kaaahl, don’t joke around! C’mon, she looked like a total thot!”_

_Okay. Yeah, kind of. You force nonchalance: “maybe she just needs a guy to treat her respectfully for once. I’ll take her somewhere nice. Hold the door open, pull her chair out for her. Give her the opportunity to ‘Go Dutch’ to show how I’m a modern guy who respects women, but make sure I brought enough cash to cover both bills. Let her pick the movie. She seemed sweet enough. Who knows - maybe we actually have some things in common.”_

_“And then what?” Cartman huffs. “You’re gonna fuck her on a rose-strewn bed while listening to your favourite The Cure album on repeat just to spite me? Virginity isn’t like bad credit: you can’t just restore it to factory settings with enough good behaviour.”_

_“I’m not -” you wheel around and smack him in the chest. “Going to_ fuck _her!”_

_Cartman makes his eyes real big and presses his hands together in that way he does, like he's enraptured in prayer. “That’s extremely wise of you Kyle, because you can tell just by looking at her that she definitely has Gonorrhea.”_

_“Oh my God,” you throw both your arms up. “What is your fucking problem!?”_

_“I’m don't_ have _a problem, Kyle!_ You’re _the one creating this complex fantasy about how you’re going to marry fucking Nancy fucking “Local North Park Whore” No Last Name just because you’re pissed off at me!”_

_“I’m not… I didn’t -” you massage your forehead. “I didn’t start this; you’re the one who brought it up in the first place, you fat fucking delusional piece of shit... misogynist!”_

_Cartman grins, all rapacious and shit-eating. “Yeah, I did start it - are you afraid to finish it!?”_

_Him saying those words in that specific tone is like a flash of lighting splitting through your skull. Of course you fucking aren’t. You put your head down, square your shoulders and rush him. He gets that look he always does 0.3 seconds before you beat his ass into the ground, which is to say:_ 'Genuine Fear For His Life And Mortal Soul _’. He hits the ground so hard he goes skidding through the slush._

_Instead of punching him, you pin his wrists down and get your thigh up between his. As you expected, he’s already hard. You start to grind against him at what you know is a bad angle - enough friction to tease, but an altogether unsatisfactory angle for the purposes of getting someone off. Cartman writhes like you’re giving him the worst purple nurple of all time._

_“Jesus fucking Christ, Kyle,” he groans. “Every fucking time - ten seconds ago you were talking about taking some girl out for dinner like a Nice, Responsible, Little Jewish Boy, and now you’re rutting against me like a -”_

_Your hand shoots out to cover his mouth. “You sure you wanna finish that sentence, fat ass?”_

_You watch a hard lump travel down his throat. You watch his eyes trace the slope of your own neck, where you scarf has come loose in the scuffle. Into your mitten, he says: “mflike a bmitchf inf fhea -”_

_You shove your hand in his mouth. The whole fucking thing. He gags around it and you meet the wave of his convulsing body with a knee to his dick. You would call this less an ‘unsatisfactory angle for the purposes of getting off’ and more a ‘literal attempt to bust his balls’. His eyes bulge open._

_“Call me a ‘bitch’ again, Cartman,” you snarl. “I_ fucking dare _you.”_

_Defiantly, his lips move around your knuckles and you know the shape they’re making, so you dive your hand down further, scape at the back of his tongue, flex out your fingers so that he can’t swallow spit or oxygen. You do this until he starts to dry heave - whimpering, with saliva running down his chin and tears beading at the corner of his eyes. Your mitten is soggy when you tear your hand out, and he follows you up, hacking and gasping for air. You lean back and appreciate how fucking ugly and wrecked he looks already. It turns out to be a bad time to gloat._

_The moment he catches his breath, he hooks your knees together and rolls you over, pins you down with his elbows on your shoulders and his huge belly pressing you into the dirt. Your legs are locked under Cartman’s weight and his pupils are so big that his eyes look black against the moonlight. Fuck it, you’ll headbutt him if you have to. You’ve done it before. His sticky, pre-vomit spit drips onto your cheeks._

_“Shiiiit, Kyle,” he whispers, raspy and a little awed. His heavy breath still smells like the fifteen mints you saw him scarf down at the top of the hill. “Does anyone else know that you’re this fucking crazy?”_

__A few people these days, maybe yeah, _you think forlornly. Out loud, you say: “not everyone goes out of their way to provoke people the way you do.”_

 _“Ha - but you always make it so easy.” He rocks against you, at what he_ knows _is definitely not a bad angle. You suck in a harsh breath, fumble the hem of your mitten in your teeth so that you can bite the heel of your palm. You’re not really at the point yet where you wanna know what kind of noises you’d make by accident when Cartman does this to you. You can practically hear him sing-songing smugly in your head:_ “Oh, Kaaa~aaahl, I always knew you were a screamer. _”_

_By now Cartman knows the rules. He doesn’t try to kiss your lips, but the ferocity with which his teeth are scraping and sucking at your jawline is a little worrying._

_“N-not above…” you paw at his face. “Not above… where I can hide it with a s-scarf, asshole -”_

_He licks his way up to your ear instead. “Can I suck your dick?” he asks, apropos of fucking nothing._

_You have to process that for a moment. “Uh. Here? Seriously?”_

_“What - do you wanna spend the rest of the hike back down to North Waifu Hell with stiff cum chafing in your boxers? Because if so, be my guest Ky -”_

_“Oh my God!” You cover your face with both hands. “Just do it, if you’re gonna fucking do it.”_

_Cartman’s nothing if not a pragmatist._

_Ten minutes later, everything all zipped up, Cartman is still licking his lips like a cat who’s got the cream. You trudge through the snow beside him and cast a baleful look up at where he’s running his thumb along the inside of his teeth. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to find it creepy or sweet that he’s weirdly super into the taste of your jizz. Like, mathematically this is actually not an un-proportional escalation to previous, equally baffling fixations - like recording all your conversations, or that time you found a couple vials of blood with your name on them hiding behind the fucking popsicles in his freezer._

_You look away, kick a rock down the hill with a sigh. “Please don’t tell me the reason you were so eager to suck me off was because you were getting antsy at having gone two whole hours without eating.”_

_He scoffs - “Who do you think I am, Kyle?” - and produces a tin of ranch-flavoured Pringles from the inside pocket of his coat. You roll your eyes so hard you can’t believe they don’t pop out of the sockets and go down the side of the fucking mountain. Knowing those were in there the whole time really takes some of the steaminess out of the encounter. That’s fine: you try to keep your jerk-off fantasies and your literal jerk-offs from Cartman in tidy, separate bins of comfortable cognitive dissonance. “Check your cell-phone,” he says, sounding so fucking smug you're ready to go for another round of busting his face up for real this time._

_He was right about the signal kicking in around the treeline. You send out a text to Stan, and Stan’s fucking dad who - unfortunately - is the one with the car tonight. ‘i got u, stay put’, Stan replies after about fifteen seconds, so you switch on the GPS and plant your ass down on the permafrost. Cartman sits beside you, still humming to himself with post-coital bliss._ Your _post-coital bliss. He’s such a selfish black hole that you can’t even bask in your own ill-gotten oxytocin._

__

_You shut your eyes and take a deep breath in. God, the air is so clear up here. “... I guess this isn’t too different from what we’d be doing on a Friday night anyway,” you say after a few minutes of uncomfortably comfortable silence._

_“Pfft,” Cartman makes a hand gesture like he’s swatting a fly in your direction. “You know we wouldn’t have to do a fuckin’ Arctic expedition every time you wanted to get some dick if you weren’t so ashaaaaaaamed of me, and your obvious homosexuality.”_

_Ugh. You sidestep the sexuality conversation as gracefully as you can, which is not very. The only thing Cartman has ever been right about is your sense of rhythm._

_You snort: “Who wouldn’t be ashamed of you?”_

_Cartman snorts right back. “Yeah right. I’m the one fucking down the hotness ladder here, Kyle. I mean… look at you.”_

_You cock an eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong with me?”_

_“You’re so… so…” he stops, stares and doesn’t get any further into his insult. Instead, he gets a weird look on his face, a little queasy, and he licks his lips as his gaze flickers from your nose to your knees and back again._

_Okay, so you were kind of trying to trap Cartman into admitting, out loud, that he’s attracted to you beyond whatever kind of weird, dark-energy satisfaction he derives from the two of you hollering at each other until he gets clocked in the nose. You’ve caught him gazing at you over the top of his math textbook before: chin in hand, eyes half lidded, rolling the eraser of his pencil over the dip in his bottom lip. He used to call you handsome with alarming frequency. Like, once a week alarming frequency, right up until the moment you let him touch your dick. Literally that day he’d described you as having a “dignified grecian profile” in a tone that implied you should have taken it as a diss. The evidence lines up._

_It feels like a victory that he doesn’t do an immediate recovery here, so you take pity on him and start listing off all the obvious problems. “My nose is weird. My hair is stupid. I’m scrawny and short and I’ve got chickenpox scars on my forehead and left cheek. Oh, and my fingers are all fucked up apparently. Jesus, what was it the cello guy in your music class said about them?”_

_“He said your hands look like you have Marfan’s Syndrome.”_

_“What the hell is Marfan’s Syndrome?”_

_“It’s what Paganini had that makes his songs all total bullshit to play. Usually it turns people into giant, slenderman-looking freaks, though. That’s why your hands are so creepy for the record, because you’re like two fuckin’ feet tall.”_

_You flip Cartman off with one of your long, creepy fingers. “Wow. Up yours.”_

_“I’m just reporting the facts as told to me by Lionel ‘Cello Guy’ Rich.”_

_“Oh my God. Is his name actually_ Lionel Rich _?”_

_“Yeah!”_

_“Like, just ‘Lionel Rich’? Like Lionel Richie with a sylabyll dropped off the end?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Holy shit, that’s the whitest name I’ve ever heard, and he was already the whitest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Like, he’s whiter than me and I’m Jewish!”_

_“HahahaHA I fucking know, right! What an asshole! You know that he’s just jealous because he’s got stubby sausage fingers and struggles doing harmonic scales path fifth position.”_

_Whatever that means. You elbow Cartman in the thigh. “Hey - next time he’s talking shit about me tell him that my creepy hands are big enough to wrap around his chubby fucking neck.”_

_Cartman tsks at you, clicking his tongue and shaking an over-confident finger. “Nuh uh. First of all, Kyle, if you did that, it would be cheating on me, and then I would have to kill him. Secondly: isn’t it policy that I’m not allowed to share the intimate details of our torrid affair with the public?”_

__(There is a very particular place between your eyes that starts to throb when you ge -) __

_“Ugh. Yeah, okay. That’s enough talking out of you tonight.”_

_“Fuck you, Kyle. I’ll do what I want.”_

_He gives you the middle finger. But: he stays quiet._

_You lean back on your palms and watch the snow start to come down in lazy spirals. There’s something intractably gratifying about silence from Cartman, and not just for the obvious reasons. The two of you have spent so much time alone together: travelling across the world, too pissed off to talk, eyeing each other up warily like wounded dogs from your opposite ideological corners, both pridefully refusing to lick a single one of your wounds... you’ve heard airports referred to as a “liminal space” by pretentious douchebags before, but that’s honest to God how you feel being around a Cartman who’s shut his mouth for once - static, floating, caught between two states with your foot arching over the threshold of something deep and unknown. You always take a step back before you cross it. If you were a better person - morally and materially, healthier too - you wouldn’t even care what was on the other side of the door. But you’re you and you can’t stop picking, peeling, digging your fingernail in the proverbial wound. You can’t stop pushing back when pushed, edging your toe further and further over the line, pulling the reel taut no matter how far Cartman casts it out. You just can’t stop, ever, not when... especially not when -_

You can’t keep up with The Mole’s freakishly long strides, and the _silent treatment_ is getting to you. You have to skip to match pace; double-steps and dorky little jumps over puddles and rubble. If you felt like a small, yappy dog before, you’d say your current state of self perception is somewhere around the level of ‘particularly high strung squirrel doomsday prepping for a nuclear winter’. You’ve been sweeping up and down endlessly identical subway tunnels for hours and he hasn’t said a fucking thing to you. Not about where you’re going, why he’s here, why he’s _alive_ or even where you are. Also, the government confiscated your phone so to figure this shit out for yourself you’ve had to use old fashioned deductive methods like “observing your surroundings”, “gleaning clues from context” and “accessing your long-term memory”.

So: it’s a metro system. Modern, curiously abandoned, still warm enough in November that you’re not freezing your nipples off with just the hospital gown under your coat. Once or twice you’ve passed through stations with a very distinct concrete roof: pseudo-brutalist, like interconnected cinder-blocks with the windows all busted out so that the moonlight casts a patchwork of grey light over the rusting tracks. You watch your feet as they crunch through the sea of broken, grease-smeared glass. Listen to the way it cracks and grounds under your boots. Inside, your mood is churning with the same guttural, broken sound - grinding again and again against the inside of your skull like a flint trying to spark a fire. Whatever you brother thinks, however, you are perfectly capable of controlling your temper.

Out loud, you make what you think is a pretty well-reasoned hypothesis: “We’re in the Capital, aren’t we?”

Ahead of you, The Mole puts his cigarette to his mouth and grunts. It’s neither an affirmation nor an admonishment. You take that as encouragement to keep going.

“I’ve been to D.C. before. It’s not big enough that we should have passed under six identical stations. You’re taking us in circles.”

He still doesn’t reply. He leads you down a left-hand tunnel branch that you’re one hundred and ten percent certain you’ve already been down. You remember, very clearly, the person-high stain on the wall that looks suspiciously like someone got their brains blown out against it years ago.

“Look, I know that you know what you’re doing so I’m not trying to argue with your methodology here, but even though Washington was abandoned years ago isn’t the city still crawling with Secret Service cyborg drones?”

The Mole exhales a puff of smoke and stops walking so abruptly that you slam into his back. You’re wheeling your arms out to get your balance back when he turns around with military-sharp efficaciousness to stare at you.

“ _‘Not to trying to argue with your methodology’,_ ” he quotes slowly.

You stare back. “Er - I-I’m really _not_. Trying to do that, I mean.”

“Funny, because that sounds like ex- _zactly_ what you are doing to me.”

“No, I’m just -”

“You think zat I did not scout ze area before I came to get you? Do you think zat zhis iz my first time at ze _American rodeo_?”

“No, of course not,” you say quietly. You remember being at something that was way more literally close to being a rodeo with him years ago, on the eve of the first American-Canadian War. Your memories of how all that shook out in the end are so fuzzy, like what the edges of a person looks like through a haze of fog. Surrounded by cigarette smoke The Mole even seems like a ghost.

You flex your fingers in and out of your palm. “I’m asking probing questions in an attempt to get a handle on the situation. Like, seriously dude, this whole thing is making me feel like I’m fucking crazy. Are we actually going in circles, or am I just hallucinating?”

The Mole shuts his eyes and makes an extremely European hand gesture. “If I tell you what we are doing and why we are doing it, will you _shut ze fuck up_?”

You open your mouth to say _yeah_ , but stop yourself. Instead: “I’ll try, but no promises.”

He sighs and takes a step forward, taps you in the center of chest. Keeps his finger there and trails it down the length of your sternum to your stomach. Your eyes go wide. _Uhhh_??? 

He blows a cloud of in your face and says: “Zhey pumped you full emotion-control anti-stimulants spiked with hypermetabolic mico-nanomachines, oui?”

Oh jesus, not this crap again. You brush his hand away. “Yeah, they said something like that, along with a whole lot of other obvious bullshit.”

“It iz not bullshit. Zhose nano-machines contain a passive tracking system in zheir subroutines. I left a device in your cell zat will allow your _petit frère_ to remotely hack the security system and temporarily cover our tracks, but in about six more hours zhey will come to check on you. Zhen zhey will activate the nano-subroutine and come looking for us. I want to make sure ze trail we leave iz not one zhey can follow.”

“I don’t fucking believe this -”

The Mole’s demeanour turns so quick that it’s like a rubber band being pulled tight until it snaps. He grabs you by the arm and yanks you in, his eyes wild and his tone manic. He shakes you, twice, and practically spits in your face. “Well you had better start to believe it if you don’t want to be -” he makes a cutting motion across your chest, trailing smoke around you. “- zliced in half by _les robots du président_ and left to bleed out in a gutter across from some abandoned paean to the failure of American imperialism such as _McDonalds_ or the _Krispy Kreme_. Which is what will happen to both of us if you do not purge zhose nano-machines from your system as swiftly as possible!”

 _A spark inside your skull like a flint striking against it, a very particular throb at the center of your head_. You are _perfectly capable_ of controlling your temper, thank you very much, but this guy is rapidly burning through his entire lifetime’s supply of “sympathy afforded to someone you once literally watched die”.

“O- _kay_ ,” you reply with a strained smile. “Nothing you said right there made me think you or this situation is any less crazy, however I’ll admit that you know more than me about what’s going on here and trust in your _methodology_. But first -” and you hold eye contact, keep smiling through clenched teeth. “- get your fucking hand off me, would you?”

He lets go of your arm. You wince, and rub at where his fingers left five points of pulsating pain behind. You can already tell that it’s gonna bruise which is just so mortifyingly typical. _You might be a full-blooded Ginger after all_ , Cartman said to you once, prodding at this big, horrible, purple mark he’d left on your thigh. _\- ‘cause you bruise easier than an overripe peach, Kyle_. Big words for someone who’d probably spent conservatively one third of his life walking around with an extremely well-earned black eye.

“Um… how do I purge the -” you sigh and shut your eyes as you say it. “ _Hypermetabolic mico-nanomachines _.”__

The Mole pops his lips around the filter of his cigarette. He replies: “How else do you think? You must piss them out.”

Your eyes snap open. “What?”

“Zhey are hypermetabolic, _imbécile_. And so they must travel through your whole metabolic system. What? Did you think zat zhey would evaporate from your bloodstream like magic?”

You run a hand down your face. Why does it _always_ have to be pee? “You know, I actually was kinda hoping for that. I mean, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from video games it’s that nanomachines are basically magic.”

“Well, zhis isn’t a video game, Mizter Broflovski. Zhis is real life and in real life ze only way for a person to eject a foreign subztance from their body is through rapid and messy evacuation of zheir bodily fluids.”

“Can’t I just vomit them up instead?”

“Abzolutely not. It has to be piss.”

“ _Why_ though? Why does it _absolutely_ have to be piss?”

The Mole makes a noise in the back of his nose that _might_ be laughter and flicks ash from the end of his cigarette. “I do not see ze point in explaining scientific specifics of micro-nanogenetics to someone who doez not believe he has been pumped full of zhem in ze first place.”

“Jesus fucking _christ_. Y’know, this is like the third worst worst rescue attempt I’ve ever experienced. You don’t have to be such a dick about everything!”

“What iz the big problem? You’ll have to piss eventually anyway, _oui_? Why take _un énorme ajustement de tempérament_ for something so inevitable?”

“I -” You don’t want to admit out loud that wandering the bowels of the US Capital with invisible pee germs all over your hands is just _psychologically intolerable_. That’ll make you sound like the crazy one. Which you aren’t. You _know_ crazy; you deal with it intimately on a daily basis.

The Mole watches you struggle with this great internal dilemma without a hint of empathy. “If want to ezcape faster, you need to piss faster. Thiz iz the only way.”

You throw your arms up in the air. “Fine, I will!”

“Zhen do it,” he says, tossing his burnt-out cigarette butt in your direction.

“I’m gonna!” you shout back, spinning around and zipping down your fly. You don’t get any further than that, however, because the whole situation has sent your shitty second-hand kidney shriveling right the fuck up into your throat. There’s basically nothing your body wants to do less right now than take a piss, which is the same thing that happens every time a doctor hands you a urine-sample cup no matter how much sugar-free soda you responsibly down in preparation beforehand. You’d imagine that the medical establishment would have a little more sympathy for the fact that you once almost died from a piss-adjacent affliction, but the universe always seems to be conspiring to turn your entire life into one arduous, inescapable session of exposure therapy.

You stare at the chipping concrete wall and think watery thoughts. You can hear the snap and hiss of The Mole lighting up another smoke behind you. “What’z wrong, Mizter Broflovski?”

“... I… can’t do it if you’re just standing there,” you stutter out.

“Pray tell why not?”

“Dude, it’s like, a universal truth. A frog in a watched pot doesn’t boil and a guy trying to take a piss with someone else listening in is just gonna develop a fucking kidney stone from the awkwardness.”

“My orders were _spezifically_ to not let you out of my sight. Zat I am turned around once again with respect for your dignity is already violating the terms of the agreements I made with Sir Ike.”

You zip up and turn around so that you can roll your eyes at him. “Yeah, my baby brother _definitely_ asked you to do creepy shit like watch as I change and listen to me urinate against a wall.”

“ _Merde_!” The Mole exclaims. “I have never met such a fucking prezious teenage boy in my life!” He strides across the tunnel, pulling a flask out of his front pocket. He uncaps it and shoves it into your hand. “Here - drink zhis.”

“Uh…” the scent that wafts up from the flask is putrid, alcoholic and about as thick and sweet as molasses. “What the fuck is this?”

“Cognac.”

Holy shit. “D-dude…” you try to hand the offending liquer back, but he won’t take it. “I can’t drink this. I’ve never had anything stronger than Passover wine, or a single can Pabst Blue Ribbon.” And, “- and m-maybe a hit or two of acid when I was nine years old. But still -”

“ _J'en ai plus rien à foutre_ ,” The Mole says, and he grabs your hand and also the _back of your fucking head_ and tries to force you to drink. 

“Woah, woah, wo -” Cognac spills over your face, over your lips, a little bit into your nostrils, causing you to snort and cough it up. It tastes like someone spiked fucking cherry Manischewitz with _maple syrup_.

With the learned panic instincts of someone who has been manhandled by strange adults with horrifying results too many times in their life, you throw out your elbow and nail him right in his big, pointy, french nose. He goes stumbling back, clutching his face with both hands. The two of you stare at each other for a moment, his dark eyes so unreadable you’re worried that he’s gonna knock you a good one right back. He doesn’t though. He just rubs the side of his face and studies you, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. You take a deep breath and hold out your hand, gesturing for him to hand you the flask.

“Look, sorry about that. I’ll fucking drink it, okay? Just… let me do it at my own pace.”

It takes him another long moment to respond. He’s looking you up and down appraisingly, like nearly flattening his nose is making him see you in a new light. Something about this feels familiar. _Do you like it when people listen to you_? asked Doctor Pradesh in your stupid, overly-literal nightmare. Well, yeah, who doesn’t? You hate how often you need to resort to fists over words, but it works. It always fucking works.

Finally, The Mole responds. “ _Très bien_ ,” he says, giving you a respectful little nod. And he hands you the flask. You stare into the dark abyss of the spout and brace yourself: for the taste, for the journey, for the idea that once again your life is about to spiral completely out of your control for the foreseeable future.

You plug your nose and chug it down.

So six shots into the cognac and you’re kind of into it.

Like, no mistake: it’s awful fucking stuff. But like any drug or drug-adjacent substance it gets easier and easier the more of it you down. It reminds you of hocking back cough syrup in the fourth grade, which at the time - recoiling your tongue at the disgusting marriage of dextromethorphan and sugar as Stan reminded you that it was _your idea, Kyle, you suggested it_ \- at the time what you thought was that cough syrup must be what Cartman’s blood tastes like. Which was kind of a faggy and a maybe even slightly dactylic thought to have had because you know - and _definitely_ knew even then - exactly what Eric Cartman’s blood tastes like. Have had it literally coursing through your veins multiple times in your life. Your arch-enemy. Your own personal blood donation bag. Ha ha. He does make you feel like you’re high out of your mind sometimes.

You know you’re a lightweight because you’re thinking about him again, itching at your fading hickeys and wondering if anyone’s told him what’s happened to you and about which direction he’ll over-or-under-react in. You think about Stan mumbling out lies to Government Agents, about Butters laying on the floor in a planchet of his own brainjuice. You rub at your nose where’s there’s a crust of dried blood just inside your left nostril. 

_God_ , you think and then you stumble off to take a fourth piss. Gulp down another two swigs of cognac to empty the flask out; shake it just to get at the last few drops. The Mole watches you sway on your feet and, without breaking eye contact, produces a second flask from the depths of his dirt-stained fatigues. Before handing it to you, he knocks back a shot himself.

After your seventh tipsy bathroom break The Mole raises his nose and says: “Zat one smells clean. We can rest soon.”

You glower up at him through your extremely unkempt hair. Your voice is slurring a little when you speak. “W-wait. Wait, _wait_ , waaaaaait. _Smells_ clean? What shthe fuck is that shupposed to mean?”

Without a even a shred of irony or shame, The Mole explains: “It iz subtle if you don’t know what you are looking for, but hypermetabolic nanomachines have a pzuedo-biological component much like bacteria cultures in yogurt, and so zhey leave behind a faint scent similar to yeast.”

“Ugh. What the actual fuck…” That’s… that’s way too much for you. You try to push past him, but trip drunkenly over your own stupid feet. The Mole catches you by the shoulders and you cringe all the way out of your skin. “Oh my God, don’t _touch_ me with your gross hands you weird, pee sniffing freak.”

He rolls his cigarette from one end of his mouth to the other and lifts his hands so that you can walk by.

“Once more, zhen we can rest,” he calls after you.

You’re in that hazy stage of pretending-you’re-half-drunk-but-actually-you’re- all-the-way drunk so you’re not entirely cognizant of the passage of time, but he definitely doesn’t let you rest after your eighth, apparently awesome-smelling, piss break. He _does_ stop leading you in circles though. You can see that the sun’s coming up through the bars in the station rooves, pink and yellow. You’ve been following the same track for nearly an hour now - long enough that your frenetic buzz has evened out and all you’re left with is sore eyes and a queasy stomach. 

“We… we have to sit down for a few minutes,” you rasp. “Or I’m gonna fucking hurl.” You run a hand down the length of your neck and realize that you’re sweating.

“ _Affirmatif_ ,” says The Mole, but he makes you walk another twenty minutes. So you throw up, but you hold out so that you can do it into a garbage receptacle at the next station. You’re not a fucking animal, after all. The Mole finally concedes to let you rest.

The two of you sit with your backs against the station wall. You don’t make eye-contact. You stare at the toes of your boots and the slats of light coming in from outside. It’s chillier here than it was back in the city, or maybe you’re just finally coming down off the adrenaline high. You dig your mittens out of your pocket and slip them on, and then you start to assess the order and content of everything that’s happened to you in the past two days, from Cartman hassling you on your date up to chucking your entire stomach into a swamp of liquified Starbucks cups.

 _Objectively_ , you think, _this isn’t the weirdest or most awful thing that’s ever happened to me_. You’re not strapped to an operating table. You’re still in the real world. You haven’t made any really stupid decisions yet.

Psychic powers, they’d said. For fuck’s sake, if only they knew the shit you went through just to prove that psychic powers didn’t exist -

_\- a spike of pain through your head. The lights all busted out, smoke staining the plastic. Butters laying on the floor, unconscious with his skull cracked open on the linoleum. You reeled around, your nose dripping blood, reached out to Stan before -_

There has to be a scientific explanation.

“God, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fucking sober in my entire life,” you groan, hitting your head against the concrete.

The Mole huffs in response and offers you the flask in what you have to admit is probably an attempt at sympathetic camaraderie. You go cross-eyed at the sight of it.

“Oh, no, no. GOD no. I can’t drink any more Cognac. I only have one kidney -” you rub your arm against your surgery scar. After all that pissing it’s kind of sore, actually. “- and it’s a crappy, _obese_ kidney.”

The Mole shrugs. “ _C'est tant pis pour tu_ ,” he says, and takes a drink. _You_ take a chance to examine him without him being cryptic or disgusting or attempting to intimidate you with his fucked up PTSD hair-trigger temper. He looks… so fucking old. Like, when you were eight you remember him having ditches in his face already, but he was still a _kid_ , right? A year, maybe less, older than you. It’s not just his face that looks adult - it’s his whole frame. He’s lanky, but filled out around the shoulders, long-legged. Sort of the frame that it looks like Stan’s half grown into. _Half_.

You can’t quite find the words to ask him about this. Instead, you say: “Hey, is it just me or have you gotten... _Frenchier_ since I last saw you?”

He cocks an eyebrow at you. “ _Invraisemblable_. I have always been zhis French.”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember you doing, uh, all the code-switching?” That’s the politically correct term right? “- last time we went to the “ _American Rodeo_ ” together.”

“Well -" he coughs. "You were alzo in ze third grade, so what ze hell did you know?”

You whip your head around to gape at him. “Ah-HA. So you _do_ remember it!”

“What? I never said zat I did not. What more do you want?”

“I don’t know! For you to acknowledge what happened maybe?”

“I see.” He sucks down a lungful of smoke, grinning all sharp-edged and unkind. “You want for me to proztrate myself at your feet and lick your balls simply because you showed me a shred of human kindness in a vast, uncaring universe, is zat it? A shred of human kindness zat surely was as much for your own benefit as it was for mine. You want me to give you a fucking Nobel Peace Prize for just doing zat?”

You blink, shocked that he would accuse you of something like that. “What? No. Of course not.”

"Zhen what is your fucking _problem_?” he snarls.

You curl your hands over your knees and dig in so hard you can feel your nails through the mittens. “I… I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d want to… talk about it?”

“What is zhere to talk about? I took ze job dezpite my mizgivings, and zhen I died.”

“Yeah, but I mean… why aren’t you _still_ dead?”

He turns to look at you full on. To r _eally_ look at you. “You seriously do not remember?” he asks, tipping forward to peer at you with near-mathematical interest. You lean back, because his breath still smells terrible. Whatever he sees in your eyes seems to answer his question. He shakes his head patronizingly. “Pfft. Of course you do not remember…”

“Remember what?”

“It iz quite a bit to explain when you are still grappling with simple scientific facts, like ze obvious connection between cleansing the body’s metabolic system and urinatio -

You can’t stop yourself. You clamp your teeth together and reach out to give him a shove. Not a playful one either. He has to throw a palm out to catch himself from falling over. Also, he spills cognac all over his pants.

“Give me the short version,” you demand when he looks at you all big-eyed. Even a small, yappy dog can assert dominance with a well placed nip to the neck, you think smugly. And you know exactly where to nip, _because you can’t stop picking, peeling, digging your fingernail in -_ “Use small words if you’re that worried about me not being able to follow along.”

“Why… do you care?” he asks. Quietly, pushing himself off the ground, looking at you with authentic curiosity.

“Because," you pull him back up. "I have basic human empathy. And I believe that people expressing mutual care for each other is what _makes_ us human. For both you benefit _and_ mine.”

“Ha,” he says and then gets so quiet you think that he really might not tell you.

But he does.

“ _Monsieur_ Satre once said zat ‘hell is other people’, but what you learn when you go to hell for yourself is zhat in actuality ze sort of asshole who would say something as insipid as ‘hell is other people’ is really saying that hell is… zhemselves. Turns out zat I was one of those assholes.”

You shoot him a sidelong glance. “Wait, you went to hell?”

“ _Oui_. Briefly, at first. It’z where most people go.”

“Not heaven?” you ask. “I mean, I’m Jewish, I don’t even technically believe in heaven. But you’d imagine that it’d, like… be there? For people who did believe in it.”

“ _Non, non, bien sûr que non_. Only Mormons go to heaven.”

“What? Seriously?”

“ _Ouais_.”

“Huh. That’s kind of fucked up.”

“Eh, it’s, ah… _comme ci comme ça_. Hell is not zat bad of a place, really. Better zhan living in some places on the planet Earth at this moment. But I was as miserable zhere as ever. When -” he pauses, takes a drag off his smoke. “See, what you do not remember is zat at the end of ze battle, your little friend in the orange parka -”

“Kenny?”

“Yes. At ze end of ze war he was granted a wish by Satan to restore everything to normal. And so everyone who died came back to life.”

“Really?” you ask, flater than you mean to. “Satan did that? What, out of the goodness of his heart?”

“As I said: hell is not so bad a place because Satan... he is a pretty cool guy all things conzidered. Firm, but fair.”

Stan’s given you this exact speech on Satan before, so you’re inclined to maybe believe it a little. But _still_. You shake your head. “Okay, no offense, but now you’re losing me. Kenny made some magical wish that brought everyone back to life? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“See, I told you. What is ze point of explaining when you prefer to be _inconscient_? You have ze innate ability to remember such things, but you choose to repress your powers so you cannot -”

“Oh my God, not you too. I don’t have any fucking “special” “powers”!”

The Mole shrugs, both hands in the air. “It is not my job to convince you, but ze sooner zat you accept it, ze easier it will be for you.”

“I don’t have to accept _anything_!” you’re trying to keep your voice even, but you can feel your temper rising in your cheeks like a fever. “I _think_ that I know my own mind better than you, and some rando government agents who _kidnapped me_ out of a hospital! Literally what the fuck do you know about me!? We exchanged maybe ten words something like seven years ago and you think that you can j-just-” you’re so pissed off so suddenly that's it's... kinda unnatural? Doesn't feel... _real _? Your vision starts to spin and blinker at the edges, flooding with little pinpricks of pain and light. “Th-that you c-can -” You try to get to your feet, but you -__

____

_The ground stained with blood for miles, fire reflecting off the snow. When Kenny pulls his hood down his smile is nearly beatific. “Well, goodbye you guys,” he said, and then you didn’t see him for… for…_

You’re laying on your back when you come to. The Mole is looking down at you, his features all pale and muddy in your swimming vision. “Holy shit,” you whisper. “I remember it now. How did I… how did I ever forget that? Kenny…” he seriously… “Kenny died.”

“ _Oui_ ,” The Mole agrees, helping you back into a sitting position. “Kenny died.”

“That bastard,” you murmur. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

“Perhaps he has and you simply have not been listening. If you forgot zat, how much more could you have forgotten?”

“Oh,” you say, because that’s all there is to say. The Mole continues:

“Or perhaps he simply does not want to say anything. The true curse of dying once and coming back to life is zat you now know zat zhere is no escape from ze prison of consciousness. Zhere is no hope for reprieve or eternal comfort. If you are the kind of complete dickhole zat cannot be happy, zhen you will look forward to death ze same way an insomniac awaits ze fall of night.” He imbibes the last drag off his smoke like it’s ambrosia. Beneath a film of blue smoke - looking very French New Wave cinema - he mutters: “to know zat life and death are ze same thing… it is truly the cruellest joke zat son of bitch God could have possibly played.”

You stare, a little mistily, at the opposite wall of the station as your companion searches his belt pockets for another cigarette. The paint has started chipping off the caution signs, has begun to drip away and warp beneath a long, hard pounding from the un-checked elements. There’s still a little stick-figure visible above the platform and he’s throwing himself onto the tracks. The words are all gone though. Signifiers without context change meaning entirely.

You’ve never been terribly concerned about death, or life after death. What’s more important to you is that scales get balanced eventually. Live life the best you can, leaving the world around you a little better than it was beforehand. Only… only that’s not really how things work, is it? What can you do to balance your own scales at this point? All the “Jewish Guilt” in the world won’t help you retrace your steps, and with the way the world’s going lately, what can anyone do to turn the clock back? _You just have all this anger lately, and none of it’s -_

“That’s… pretty dark, dude,” you whisper. “I guess it really makes you grasp the concept of “mortality”, huh? I don’t think that the human mind was meant to deal with something like what you and Kenny went through. I mean, it sounds impossible, and there’s probably a reason for that.”

The Mole snickers. “Well - zhere are more things in heaven and earth zhan dreamt of in your prescriptivist delusions of logic, science and theory, Mizter Broflovski.”

_Wait a fucking mi -_

You retract your generous show of empathy and shoot him a half-lidded glare. “Did you just try to insult me by quoting Hamlet? After all that?” 

“What? Would you rather zat I insult you using something a little more modern? How about zhis one: _ze man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point zat he cannot distinguish truth_. Zat’s you if you don’t wise ze fuck up soon.”

“I’d rather you didn’t insult me at all, to be honest.”

“Well,” The Mole says, getting to his feet. “You don’t always get what you want.” He stops for moment, thoughtfully tapping a bit of ash in your direction, then offers you a hand. “Zat one came from your American Philosophers, _Ze Rolling Stones_.”

"Yeah, I know," you roll your eyes as hard as you can, but you _magnanimously_ accept his help, still shaky from the black out. “I’ve listened to music before.”

“Mmm hmm,” he replies, and begins checking his supplies over. You notice that his hands are shaking: just a little, but noticeably worse than before. You chew your lip as you watch him. The bags under his eyes are so dark it looks like someone punched him there once a day until it stuck. _Like an insomniac awaits the fall of night_ , is what he said.

“H-hey,” you start, running a hand up under your hat. “I’m… sorry, all right? I shouldn’t have pushed you to talk about all that shit.”

He grunts. “It’z ‘whatever’.”

“No, dude, it’s not ‘whatever’. You obviously have a lot going on, and you’re risking even more to help me out so I should have been… nicer.”

“ _Ça va_ ,” he replies, making you feel a million fucking times more awkward.

“Look, what I’m trying to say, uh… _Mole_? Wait, am I supposed to be calling you ‘The Mole’ still, or…?”

“My name iz Christophe,” he says, slinging his travel-pack over his shoulder. “Zat will do.”

“I know, I’m just -” you make a really dumb hand gesture that you immediately regret. Mr. Garrison, before he went completely off the reservation, once called you a _‘cute, little limp-wristed proto-twink’_. Which was like… was that sexual harassment?

You adjust your hat, eyes going everywhere before they finally settle on his face. “... are we on a first name basis now?”

He meets your gaze for a really weird fifteen seconds. “If you want, zhen I suppose we are,” he says, and then turns away from you to hide the beginnings of a smile. “ _Dépêchez-vous_ , Kyle - we have a long trip, so no more of zhis philosophical, emotional dawdling.”

You grin to yourself as well, and then do a _dorky little_ half-skip to keep up with his stupidly long strides. “Where are we going anyway?”

"A place where people like you are safe."

"Yeah," you press, "but _where_ is that. Like, specifically on the map."

“Oh. Well. Toronto.”

He says this like it's no big deal, but the word makes your mood plummet as quickly as it rose. You get whiplash so bad that you stumble to a stop. Christophe doesn’t turn around, or even wait for you. Which is fine. You’re good. You’re cool. You’re trembling under the skin, plastering on a bitter, helpless smile because, wow: there really is no such thing as chance or coincidence, is there? Life is a joke with more punchline than setup.

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake_!” you whisper to yourself. To the hollow half-darkness of the subway tunnel, to the fucking sky, which you can’t see because you’re like fourteen meters underground. Not that you’d get any universal answer if you could see the sky anyway. The Mole was right: God really is a spiteful, ironic son of a bitch.

Kenny strikes a match against the grain of his wallet and lights up a smoke. He and Cartman are leaning against the trunk of Cartman’s mom’s empty car, staring up at her emptier house. The moon’s just a sliver tonight, sucking the colour from the cold air and turning everything all grainy and gray-scale. The abandoned house looks like a tombstone against the clear, night sky. Then again, Kenny compares basically everything to a tombstone. They’re kind of hard not to think about when you die on average like twice a month. Cartman’s face is sallow beneath the white light. He looks contemplative: chewing his lip, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, scratching his nails into the nylon grooves of his goose-feather coat. You’d almost think he was having an emotion about everything that’s happened to him over the last two days. Therapy doing wonders overnight.

Kenny blows out a puff of smoke and it snaps Cartman out of his reverie. He makes a big show of scrunching up his piggy nose and waving it off. 

“Christ Almighty, Kenny, that’s a disgusting habit,” he grouses. “You already fucked that fat, goth chick, why haven’t you quit already!? When you die of lung cancer at thirty-three my eulogy is just going to be half an hour of canned laughter.”

Kenny doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he asks: “do you understand what we need to do?” 

“What I understand," Cartman winces, and rubs his ass. "- is that the only fucking reason you bust me out of the psych ward was to get at my car keys and fake IDs. Typical poor person tactics: they only call you when they need fifty bucks, or for you to shit out six months worth of getaway material on command.”

Kenny snickers. “Maybe you shouldn’t shove all your valuables up your ass at the first sign of trouble.”

“Oh, Kenny. So naive.” Cartman places a hand on his chest and sighs longsufferingly. “If you’d been on the inside, you’d understand. Until then, stop leveraging your ‘never-been-to-jail’ privilege over me.”

Kenny doesn’t dignify that with a response. There’s not much Eric says that actually dignifies response, which is why Kenny gets on with him so well; he’s the only person who knows how to wind him _down_. For someone without basic human empathy, Cartman’s a lot like an emotional sponge - he’ll absorb whatever you pour into him. Most of their classmates can’t seem to resist winding him up, however. Some people even _like_ winding him up, God knows why.

Speaking of which -

“You haven’t asked what’s in this for you, yet.”

Cartman's eyes slide shut and his mouth glides into a grin. “What isn’t in this for me? I’ll get to lord this over Kyle basically forever, and also I might have a chance at getting my dick sucked in the next century.”

“Mmm hmmm. That’s it? It’s pretty easy to get your dick sucked, Eric, trust me. Why Kyle?”

Cartman blinks at him. “Uhhhh, because I’m in love with him. Fucking _obviously_.”

Kenny just stares. Cartman stares back.

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“Oh,” Kenny laughs as he pushes off the car. “I believe you. But I’m not the one you have to convince.”

Cartman’s expression goes into problem solving overdrive. His brow creases at the center and he looks down at his hands, up at the sky, back down to the ground, then at Kenny. He opens his mouth, but is interrupted by Butters calling out to them from down the street.

“Hey, fellas, I got all the stuff you asked fo -!”

Kenny clotheslines Butters into a side-hug when he hits the driveway, whipping an elbow over his mouth. He points down the street with his cigarette, to where there’s an FBI drone hovering just above the Broflovski Family’s doorway. Then he puts a finger to his lips in the universal sign for: _“shut the fuck up, Butters”_.

Butters nods, his big watery eyes catching all the moonlight. When Kenny lets him go, he immediately bends under the weight of three over-stuffed duffle bags. “I-I got all the supplies you asked for,” he whispers. “All the, um, aluminum foil, the skillet, the gas-powered hot plate, uh, six bottles of stump remover and eight aerosol cans, and the 10lb bag of calcium ni - -”

“And the powdered doughnuts?” Cartman asks.

“Jesus Christ, Cartman,” Kenny mutters.

“Oh, of course. Couldn’t forget those!” Butters pulls out a bag of Donettes and hands them over. Cartman tears the pack open and tosses one in his mouth before bouncing off the trunk of the car.

“C’mon, fags -” he calls over his shoulder, spinning his keys on one finger. “Road-trip time!”

Kenny's pretty enthusiastic when he slides in the passenger's seat. It’s not until they’re on the highway that he realizes his miscalculation.

“Uh uh!” Butters scolds when he reaches for the radio tuner. He actually leans full on into the front seat and _slaps_ Kenny's hand away. "Eric’s car, Eric’s rules, Eric’s _music_.”

“Hell, fucking _yeah_!” Cartman pounds on the wheel. “Do you have the playlist I asked you to make, Butters?”

“The 46-hour ‘Mexico Getaway Sing-a-long?’ playlist? Sure do!”

“Fuck YEAH!”

 _Oh no_ , Kenny thinks as the car fills with duck-like baseline of Taylor Swift’s third worst #1 hit.

“Oh no,” Kenny says.

He wasn’t prepared for this incomprehensibly lame turn of events.

“Just wait for the second stage of the playlist,” Butters says, super fucking proud of himself for some reason. “It’s five hours straight of retro J-Lo duets!”

Cartman laughs. “Oh yeah. Butters is fucking useless at basically everything else, but he raps a mean Ja Rule.”

“I sure do!”

“Oh FUCK no,” Kenny groans into the palms of his hands. Like a dog with it’s leg caught in a trap, he considers his options.

It's gonna be a long trip. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCkB4BcnzFE) is Butters & Cartman's favourite duet.


	5. Disenchantment and Truth II

You take a car to the Canadian border. 

Well, okay - you _steal_ a car to the Canadian border. After nearly a day of walking, waiting, dodging at shadows, Christophe hotwires someone’s shitty Honda Civic in the back of a truck-stop and barks at you in French to get in. It’s not until you’re on the highway that you notice what’s in the backseat.

“Dude,” you say, hands curled over the top of the headrest. “We have to take the car back.”

“ _Merde_ , what now?”

“There’s like… toys and shit back here. This belonged to a family. They had their kids with them.”

Christophe keeps driving. You twist around to get your eyes on the road again. He clips right past the off-ramp that would have turned you around.

“Are you ignoring me, or…?”

“I am going to ask you honestly, Kyle Broflovski: does anything about zhis situation really seem like somezhing zat I would give a solitary flying fuck about?”

You frown. “Now that I think about it... I guess not.”

“Bezides - comfy middle class family taking a pre-Christmas road-trip through cabin country? Without a doubt, ze car is insured to Hell and back. Possibly zhey will get a hefty payout because I relieve them of zhis hideous, aging, over-financed piece of shit.”

“Okay, maybe, but you can’t insure personal possessions, dude. There’s some stuff back there that really looks like it’s gonna be missed.”

“Do you actually care about zhis, or are you just sniffing your own farts right now?” Christophe asks.

“What?”

“I’m azking whether you seriously give a fuck about zhis theoretical family zat you have never met, or if you are just being reflexively moraliztic to make yourself feel better, like a cat purrs to soothe it’z wounds.”

“Holy shit, I just suggested that maybe we be a _little_ pickier about who we rob in the future!”

“A car such as zhis is just an empty signifier, an example of ze hyperreal.” Christophe picks the unlit cigarette from behind his ear and tosses it demonstratively at the windshield. “Ze American Dream of what ze car represents symbolically has little to no connection to ze actual material function of it. Sure, ze family may be sad, but ze idea zat zhis car has sign-value rather zhan just use-value is absurd. It iz as replaceable as anything else.”

“Wow, and you’re the one who accused me of sniffing my own farts,” you mutter. He keeps fucking going.

“ - you are smart enough to know zhis instinctively, hence my suggestion zat all you’re doing iz making correct-sounding noizes with your mouth in order to look like a good person. And I really do not give a rat’s ass if you are “good” or not.”

“I get it already! God, this is like a conversation I’d have with -” _Cartman_. You choke on the name. Like, literally - you suck it back into your mouth so fast you start coughing.

Christophe spares you a curious glance. “With...?”

 _Ugh_. “With the most annoying person I know,” you answer, clearing your throat. 

“What a coincidence. You remind me of ze most annoying person I know as well.”

“Y’know, I’m kinda getting sick of this. How about this: I’ll lay off the ‘reflexive morality’ if you lay off the insults.”

“Actually,” Christophe chuckles, “zat was a compliment. I never said that I did not _like_ ze most annoying person I know.”

“Oh. Well -” you wrench your hands together. “… thanks? I guess?”

And yeah, that’s obviously gonna be the end of the conversation for a while. You put your chin in your palm and stare out the window. The distant sunset burns through the bare tree branches making them look like black skeletons against the orange horizon. Like veins under pale skin. Wow, morbid stuff there, Kyle. Sounding real psychologically healthy inside your own head. God, the thought of that plastic dinosaur in the back seat is digging under your skin like it’s the freaking Telltale Heart.

All of a sudden the car screeches to a halt. You jolt forward and nearly smash your nose on the dash.

“What?” you look around wildly - at the road, then at your traveling companion.

Christophe stares at you for an unnecessarily long time, his expression masked by red shadows. Finally, he huffs out a sigh and says: “Would you put your _fucking_ seat belt on, _s'il te plaît_? 

_Oh_. You roll your eyes as you buckle up. “I thought it was something serious.”

“Car saftey iz _exceptionnellement_ serious, Kyle,” Christophe scolds, hitting the gas so hard you hit the back of your seat with an ‘oof’. “I _am_ trying to keep you alive here.”

It goes on like that for a while. Christophe drives through the night and you doze on and off, wracked by fitful, confusing nightmares about robot arms and Leslie Meyers and Stan getting shot in the head by a government drone. You’re sweating buckets when you wake up despite the cold.

You can see the fog rolling off Lake Erie as you drive towards the Niagara River. Christophe sticks to back-roads the closer you get to the border, a route designed to take you around the ruins of Buffalo. You pass through so many abandoned, familiar-feeling little townships that it starts to freak you out. Where did all these people evacuate to when the military scoured the border? South Park has been so untouched by any form of manual reorganization you sometimes forget how fucked the Liberal East Coast is.

At the first strains of morning hitting the sky, Christophe rolls down the window and flares up a smoke one handed. The light flickers across his face in static bursts through the treeline, like one of those old-timey light box films from the early 1900’s. It’s so quiet out here in the badlands of New York State that it fills your head up with horrible, white-noise dread. It’s not right for the wilderness to be this quiet; you can’t even hear birdsong. The light from the sunrise doesn’t reach all the way north and the clouds hanging over the river are nearly black.

Christ, he really is going to take you all the way to Toronto, isn’t he? You’ve been trying not to think about it, which was easy enough when you were harried and tired and ducking in and out along the ditches dug around the Maryland I-90. Now? You can practically smell death in the air. It’s spilling in through the window at 85 miles per hour. _And the silence is killing yo_ -

You cast around for a topic of conversation. Something innocent. Something neutral. Something that won’t make you sound like you’re gonna be a basketcase the moment your feet hit Canadian soil.

“How old are you?” is what you blurt out.

Christophe seems unfazed by the super weird tone-of-voice with which you ask this deceptively simple question. “Twenty-six,” he answers easily. He pauses, then adds: “I… zhink.”

“Wait. What do you mean ‘I think’?”

He puffs out a ribbon of smoke. “You see - when I died, I electively chose to defer my rezurrection. Time passes very differently in Hell zhan it does on Earth. Additionally, when I finally decided to come back, I was spit up at a random point in my timeline. I _zhink_ twenty-six is some years younger zhan I should be, based on what both my birth certificate and my heartless mozher say.”

You shake your head, disbelieving. None of this makes any sense at all. “Okay, this has been bugging me since the moment I saw you. When we first met, during the whole… _thing_ with Terrance and Phillip, you were about my age right? But I only just turned sixteen this year. Why the hell are you so much older than you should be?”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Have you considered ze possibility zat perhaps it is not me who is too old, but _you_ zat are too young?”

“Wh… what?” you narrow your eyes and shoot him a quizzical look. He looks back - just as curious - from the corner of his vision.

“What year were you born in?” he asks.

Well, 2024 minus 16 is 2008, so obviously 

\- but wait. You _definitely_ remember Obama’s election victory that year. Ike used to be a Young Republican back then, and he was so crushed by John McCain’s loss that you used your allowance to take him out for waffles and ice cream the next morning to cheer him up (and maybe also to gently guide him away from his misguided attachment to the Bush administration).

That was fourth grade, which means that you were born in… 1999, right?

No, that’s not right. 1999 was the year of the Chinpokomon craze. God, the fucking Chinpokomon craze... _and_! You remember the cultural shift after 9/11 with such startling clarity that sometimes it feels like it happened yesterday. If you were in third grade in 1999, then you must have been born in….

1990\. But if you were born in 1990, then you should be… thirty-four years old? No fucking way - your dad only just turned fifty-one this year and you’re _pretty_ sure he didn’t impregnate your mom when he was still in High School. But the math lines up. How the hell does the math line up?

“Uh,” you whisper, rubbing your forehead. It’s starting to hurt. “What the fuck? Why do I have all these memories of years I can’t have possibly lived through?”

Christophe doesn’t answer. He starts to slow the car. You’re pulling up to some sort of barricade, but you can make out the details beyond shapes and shadows because you’ve buried your face in your hands trying to make sense of the numbers racing through your head.

“Am I actually an adult already and everyone in town has been playing a sick joke on us, or…or what?” Jesus you hope not, not with how short you still are and how patchy and gross your facial hair comes in.

The engine dies and you hear Christophe crank the door open. “I would not worry about it. You are definitely still a shitty teenager, Kyle Broflovski, but let’s just say zat ze rest of ze world is not so young and shitty as you.”

You whip around to fire back but he’s already gone, heading towards the road-block with his pack slung over his shoulder. You scramble out after him, but the moment you swing out of the seat something goes _crunch_ beneath the greaves of your boots. You look down to see a pair of grimy reading glasses laying cracked and mutilated on the road. Surrounding them is a sea of similarly abandoned personal effects: wallets, jackets, waterlogged stuffed animals with tangled, blackened fur. Backpacks with the straps torn, shoes and busted cellphones. The debris lead all the way to the barricade at the end of the road - a wall caved in at both ends where some desperate civilians ran their minivans and SUVs into the low-cost cement braces. Beyond the wall is the Niagara river, and past that, Canada.

You jog to catch up, buttoning your coat as you go. The November chill is sliding up your sleeves, reminding you how extremely goddamn thin and immodest your hospital gown is underneath them. You can feel frost gathering in the air as the sky prepares to storm.

“Ze Whirlpool-Rapids bridge,” Christophe says a few minutes later, tossing his cigarette over the side of the cliff. 

You snort, and line the toes of your boot up with the band of rubble where the road ends. “Ha - is that really the best they could do?” 

“You must appreciate ze rare descriptive name in a land full of dogwhiztling euphemisms.”

You feel sick as your gaze sweeps over the dark water. “This is seriously where we cross over…?”

Christophe shoots you a wolfish grin. “What? Are you afraid?”

You shake your head. The rapids below are churning up a vicious white foam and the bridge is half collapsed; only steel bars in the middle. But you’ve survived worst. You’ve never been afraid of something happening to your _body_. Your family, your friends, your pride, your grades - okay, sure. But your body? It says in _Kohelet_ that dust returns to the earth, the breath of life returns to God who gave it, and all the rest is vanity.

 _Besides_ \- the nice thing about falling off a bridge is that eventually you hit the fucking water.

_Seven months ago, Stan is saying to you: “Dude, are you okay?”_

_And you’re staring at where your boots are crunching through a puddle, all the little cobweb patterns of ice and brittle, rotten pine needles grinding under the worn rubber. In a town with a winter as long as South Park's, spring just smells like death._

_You answer: “yes, Stan,” automatically and in a tone of voice that you know will do absolutely nothing to convince him of your okay-ness._

_You still don’t look at him, but you can imagine the look he’s giving you. You could accurately recreate a conversation with Stan in any given situation the way a no-life nerd could probably recreate Star Wars from scratch in a post-apocalyptic scenario._

_He sighs, like he’s your parent or something. God, your parents are the last thing you want to think about. “You’ve been… really weird lately.”_

_Yeah, well - so have you, you don't say. He's been drinking, and you've been..._

_“I’m just stressed out about school.”_

_“School? Dude, it’s fucking April. What’s there to be stressed about at school?”_

_“I dunno, Stan. Maybe if you stopped skipping class to go drink Absinthe and smoke menthol cigarettes with Henrietta and Pete behind the Circle K you’d know what was going on in your own life as well as mine.”_

_It takes you a moment to realize that Stan has stopped walking. You spin around to see that he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. The sunset has already turned the light orange and red. His expression is hidden under the brim of his baseball cap._

_“Kyle," he breathes. "Why are you so… fucking_ mean _?”_

_You wrench your fingers around the straps of your backpack. “I’m… not mean.”_

_“You are, to me, whenever I need help, dude, you just -”_

_“Stan, here’s the problem: this conversation started because you were worried about me, and now we’re somehow talking about you.”_

_He shuts his eyes and sighs. “Like that. Was that really necessary?”_

_“I -”_

_“You never let me just… worry about you, dude. Okay, yeah, my life is falling apart right now, thanks for noticing Kyle. But you don’t have to put me on trial about it every goddamn time we talk. Did you ever think that it might make me feel better to have something outside myself to focus on? Did you ever think about how it might make me feel good to be able to take care of you when I can’t take care of myself? I hate feeling like I need to reach some unattainable Broflovski-standard of ‘okay’ness to be allowed to do something as simple as ask you about your fucking day.”_

_Holy shit. Stan’s voice has gone all tinny and flat, like it does just before he starts crying. Worse than that, the speech sounds like one he's been saving up for a while now. You rock back on your heels and try to think of something better to say than whatever reflexively comes to mind._

_“Stan, I -”_

_He cuts you off. “We’re supposed to be best friends, Kyle," he chokes out. "But sometimes it feels like you want to kick me when I’m down.”_

_You fall back like you’ve been punched. You can’t even look him in the eye._

_All he did was ask you if you were okay, and you made him fucking cry. This is a bad and old pattern with you guys. It’s so easy to prod Stan’s weak spots because, with you, all he_ is _is weak spots. You like to think you’re being honest with him, but honesty can be wielded like a weapon the same as it can be used as a tool. God, he might be right: when you’re running on autopilot, you use it like a blunt, wounding implement._

_If you were really honest with him, you’d tell him what was going on. You’d tell him about you and Cartman, and about your dad, about your big, fat, family secret. It would feel good to tell Stan about all that - like inhaling after holding your breath underwater for hours. You’re just never sure how he’s going to react. You trust Stan with your secrets, with your heart, with your_ life, _but not… well, you don’t trust him with_ himself.

_You bite your lip, take a deep breath and say: “I’m sorry Stan. That had nothing to do with you. The truth is -”_

_But when you look up, he’s already gone. He slams the door to his house without looking back._

“It’z a days walk to Toronto,” Christophe explains, tracing the projected route through the air. “- along the shore of Lake Ontario. Fifteen hours to ze hellscape known as Hamilton, where we take a break.”

“Wait? Fifteen hours straight of _walking_?” your legs are already jelly from the hour it took to inch your way across the bridge, not to mention your flight from the Capital.

“You should have slept better in ze car,” Christophe replies pitilessly. He takes a swig of cognac before forging onward.

It starts snowing around midday, so hard that you have to shield you face against it. So hard that time just fucking disappears beneath the whiteout. The snow piles up fast and it’s like trudging through molten lead to keep up. 

“This isn’t… a nuclear snowstorm, is it? We’re… not going to come out of this riddle with tumors or anything, right?”

“ _C’est n’importe quoi_. Ze Nuclear Winds in Canada move in a northwestward pattern. Zhese winds are blowing south, obviously.”

“Oh yeah,” you mutter. “ _Obviously_.” Your toe hits something in a snowbank and you go stumbling nearly face-first into the ground. You catch yourself on palms and knees and, on instinct, your head spins around to see what tripped you up. You’re expecting to see a rock, a tree-root, a chunk of upended pavement. What you actually see is: a gnarled human hand, blackened and fossilized, reaching up out of the snow melodramatically like something plastered on the wall of the Sistine Chapel.

Your elbows go wobbly underneath you. You roll over and cover your mouth to stop yourself from dry-heaving up the military ration Christophe made you eat less than an hour ago. “Holy _shit_ ,” you choke, but you can’t stop looking at it. “Holy fucking shit, dude.”

Have you been walking over fucking corpses this whole time? The ground’s pretty lumpy under the snowfall - crunchy and uneven. You’re shaking all over at the thought of it.

Christophe’s shadow falls over you. You tip your head back to see that he’s staring at the skeletal hand with a blank expression: dark-eyed, emotionless. He doesn’t even look surprised. Honestly, what the hell were you expecting from him at this point?

“ _Ne vous en faites pas_ ,” he says, and gives you a hand up.

You turn that phrase over and over in your head as you trudge after him through the snow. A couple summers ago Ike went to a French Immersion camp in North Cascadia and came back refusing to speak english for something like three months, so you’ve got a pretty decent grasp on basic French grammar. You’re not like Cartman - who learns languages like a fish takes to water and spent some time giggling with Ike behind your back in French on CoD teamspeak until you figured out what “ _mes couilles sur ton front_ ” meant and put your boot straight through Cartman’s own _couilles_ \- but, you’re not half bad at linguistic retention either.

Don’t _worry about it_?

He seriously told you to _not worry about it_!? The wind is howling too loud for you to holler over it, so you just boil away inside your own head for what’s got to be at least an hour. How are you supposed to not fucking worry about the fact that you just stomped all over a dead person? You’re not supposed to worry about the fact that you’re wandering through the literal skeleton of what was, until a couple years ago, a prosperous First World nation? You’re supposed to just _not fucking think_ about the sound of bone crunching under your boot? You’re supposed to _not_ fixate on the fact that all this destruction is the result of a conflict that you, personally, helped cast the first stone in? You… you -

“Don’t worry about it!?” you shout once the storm has died down. “Are you kidding me? That body looked like it was burnt alive. How am I supposed to forget about that?”

Christophe is at the bottom of a quarry, sheltered from the snow and wind. He casually strikes up a smoke before acknowledging you, which makes you feel really fucking small despite the fact that you’re towering over him from a ten-foot ridge.

“You were saving zat up for some time, I see,” he says, instantly surrounded by smoke. You swing down into the quarry with him, still spitting fire.

“What the hell else was I going to be thinking about that whole time? I stepped on a dead body!”

“Hmm, well what are ze American teenagers into zhese days? Ze newest military recruitment vehicle falzely peddled to ze market as a ‘video game’? What ze Kardashians are up to in ze White House? Ze overwhelming ennui of living beneath late stage capitalism and knowing zat ze human race is literally consuming itzelf alive?” Christophe kicks the snow off a sheet of rusty tin and begins dragging it to the other side of the quarry. “Help me with zhis unless you would like to die inzide this hole.”

You’re passing through the outskirts of a city, right along the harbor. He’s leading you through a… you think it’s a steel mill? You’re climbing in and out all of the pits for the blast furnace, sticking low, crawling under fences. The snow’s coming down light now, in disperse, wet flakes that melt to black slush on the oily ground. The metal drudges up a deeper mire when you drag it through the gravel, scraping and grinding up shards of smokey, bomb-fused glass.

“Oh my God, would it kill you to be sincere for ten seconds?” You help him put the makeshift ramp into place.

“If only God _would_ strike me down for a crime so minor as sarcazm,” he says around his cigarette. “Zhen perhaps I would not have to curse zat son of a bitch every day of my mizerable, wretched exiztence.”

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, watching him hitch himself up out of the quarry. 

He’s the one looking down now. “It seems to me, Kyle, zat perhaps all this, ah, _kvetching_ has nothing to do with me, or ze specific situation about which you currently have your panties in a twist.”

“Did you seriously just,” you start to pull yourself up the metal sheet. “- throw a yiddish phrase at me?”

“What? My _pépère_ was Jewish.”

You open your mouth to reply, but your heel hits a patch of ice and goes skidding out from under you. It’s not a long tumble back into the quarry; unfortunately you slide hard against the rough edge of the metal where it’s all jagged and rusty. The corroded tin tears through the fabric of your jeans like... like, _well_ , a sharp fucking edge of corroded scrap metal. You hit the slush shoulder first and go rolling a few times before landing flat out on your back.

Above, Christophe is laughing -

“ _Mon Dieu_ , Kyle! Zhis is, what, the third? Fourth time you have fallen on your ass today? You are more clumsy zhan a protagonist of some nineteenth century girl’s novel.”

You clutch your leg, wincing. Oh God, it feels wet under the fabric. “Yeah, yeah, you’re hilarious,” you grind out. “But I think I actually hurt myself.”

That shuts Christophe up. His eyes go wide and he skates down the ramp, running to your rescue like some extremely odiferous knight in shining armor. You ease up on your elbows to watch him roll aside your fucked up pant leg. He frowns and hands you some cognac, the third flask you’ve seen him crack open in just a day and a half.

“Ugh, no more -” you shove the offending object away. “Why do you have so much cognac on you anyway?”

“It iz good for treating wounds,” Christophe holds up his fingers as he counts off its uses. “It iz highly flammable. Also: for getting so drunk you forget everything about this selfish bitch of a life.”

You suck in a hard breath. “... on second thought, give it back.”

You knock back a few shots and then hand it over so that he can clean the wound. “Not deep enough to waste a bandage on,” he says thoughtfully after a few minutes, “but I will sew your pant-leg back up.”

You laugh. “If I die of tetanus it’s on you.”

“Hmm. If you were to contract lockjaw, maybe you’d keep your mouth shut for ten seconds, _oui_?”

Your only response to that is to give him the middle finger. You lean back on your palms and watch the movement of the moon beneath the clouds. It’s all familiar: the early onset evening, the soft-falling snow, the crisp edge to the wind - the weather back home probably isn’t much different than this right now. But air feels different here. Thick, grungy, fetid. You can’t tell if it’s just a psychological thing, or because you’re used to _mountain_ winter as opposed to _lake_ winter, or if it’s literally the aura of a nuclear bomb hanging in the air and scraping down your esophagus like you’ve swallowed an angry, feral cat. You’ve been breathing shallow since the storm started, like you can filter all the horrible shit out of the air by pure force of will.

Yeah. That is _definitely_ just some dumb, psychosomatic urge, accomplishing absolutely nothing except to make you feel dizzy and dumb.

“You’re right,” you say suddenly. “My “ _kvetching_ ” had nothing to do with seeing that corpse.”

Christophe looks askance at you from where he’s doing a surprisingly nimble suture stitch up the length of your jeans. 

“Well, I mean - it had _something_ to do the corpse. Indirectly.”

“You are unenthusiastic about ze idea of going to Toronto, zat is correct?” 

You start chewing your lip and wish you’d thought to shove a tube of your prescription lip balm in your pocket when Cartman got arrested. “I’ve kind of got a… _history_ with the city of Toronto.”

“I am well aware.”

You gape at him. "Then why the hell are we going there?”

“As I said. It iz a place where you will be safe.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure I’ll be incredibly safe in the ruins of a city that I fucking convinced the President to drop a nuke on!”

“What? You imagine zat zhey have your mugshot on every corner? You really do zhink a lot of yourself, Kyle Broflovski.”

“I… that’s not it…”

“Zhen it’s just guilt? Not to be reductive, but don’t be such a fucking _pussy_.”

You cover your eyes. “I’m not a pussy I’m just…” 

_Ashamed_. 

Who wouldn’t be?

Christophe is silent for a moment. You hear him snap the thread off with his teeth and sigh. “I seem to remember during zat first trip to ze American Rodeo together meeting a remarkably self possessed eight year old boy who was very convinced zat he could change ze course of an entire war with just ze help of his two incompetent best friends and an offer of punch and pie.”

You lift your hand. “First of all: the punch and pie thing was absolutely _not_ my idea. Second of all: what?”

“- how disappointing to find zat incredible spirit all but snuffed out.”

“Are you…” you stare at him from beneath the shadow of your palm. “- trying to give me a pep talk?” 

He actually _smiles_ at you. Like, _nicely_. “Do you need one? To get ze fuck on with it?”

“I don’t know what I need,” you whisper, talking more to yourself than to him. “I just have… all this _anger_. But none of it feels productive. Nothing I do feels productive anymore. It’s all empty, wasted energy. Nothing’s going to change. We’re being crushed under the entropy of cultural stupidity and apathy. It’s impossible to turn back the tide of the shit avalanche we all started.”

Christophe doesn’t reply. Well, like - he reacts. He looks you over sympathetically, and he does that for a pretty long time. Then he slings his pack off his shoulder and zips it open. “I told you zat we could rest in Hamilton, so let’s rest.”

“I’m fine to keep going,” you say, not actually fine at all.

“ _Non, non_ , we should -” he stops short, raising his head, ears away from the water. “What was zat?” he whispers.

“What?” you look around. There’s nothing.

“ _Zat_.”

You hear it this time. Voices, rising over the damp quiet of the harbor. Christophe’s disposition changes immediately. It’s only seeing him turn all sharp-edged and twitchy again that you realize how much he’s softened up on you over the past few hours. He unhooks the… the giant, fabric-wrapped _thing_ that’s been strapped across his pack this whole time from its tethers. You hadn’t given the amorphous shape much thought until now. He whips the tarp off to reveal that it’s a -

“Is that a _rifle_?” you gasp.

He shoots you a condescending look. “Really, Kyle? Aren’t you supposed to be a mountain-bred hick of some sort? Do not tell me you have never held a gun before.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean - we have no idea who those voices belong to. Is that really necessary?”

“ _Oui. Absolument_.”

“You’re not gonna just -”

Christophe shoulders the gun and shoves past you, climbing back out of the quarry. You spin to your feet and limp up the ramp after him.

“Hey, I was in the middle o -”

  
  


Below you, at the gates of the mill, are a man and woman huddled up in parkas and shouting into the wind.

“McDougie! Son, where are you!” the man calls out, hands cupped around his mouth.

His wife swoons against him. “Oh dear, Gord, I fear that he’s lost forever. Whatever shall we do?”

Christophe keeps scanning the skyline with his binoculars, but as far as you can see it’s nothing but train tracks and abandoned big-box stores for miles.

“Listen to them,” you whisper. “They’re looking for their kid.”

Christophe groans. “Oh _merde_ , not _zhis_ again -”

You elbow him in the side, hard. “ _Yes_ this again! 

“It would be better to not get involved, trust me.”

“ Are you serious? Aren’t you some kind of expert… tracker or whatever? How could you live with yourself knowing that you could have helped them, but chose not to?”

“Let me guess -” Christophe fiddles his cigarette between two fingers and gives you a diffident look. “- you are ze type who gives a twenty dollar bill to a homeless man? Not because you want to, but because it, socially, seems like ze “righteous” thing to do?”

“I… _what_? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Zhis?” Christophe sweeps his hand out. “Iz giving a homeless person twenty dollars. Zhere are many such tragedies in zhis world and if we stop for each and every one we encounter, we will zhen be endless shackled by fake obligation to suck on ze wounds and ze dick of every unfortunate wretch in ze whole of fucking Canada!”

“I’m not asking you to help every random person in the country!” you snap. “I’m asking you to help _these_ specific people!”

“Um, excuse me,” says one of the specific people in question. You and Christophe look down in unison. “Not to be rude, guy,” the man shouts up at you, “but we can hear the two of you arguing about our fate from down here.”

“Yes,” echoes his wife. “If you mind, we are actually quite distressed about the loss of our dear child and this argument is only adding to our stress. So if you could make up your mind about whether or not you’re going to help us…”

“We are!” you call back, sneaking Christophe a triumphant look. “We’ll be right down!”

Christophe grounds his hand into his face and growls in frustration. “You have no idea what you have gotten us into…”

“Oh go fuck yourself, Christophe. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“An idiot? _Non_. But you are a soft-hearted fool who iz going to end up rotting in a shallow grave before you are legally able to drink.”

You shoot him a terse, unpleasant grin that shows your teeth before making your way down the hill. Honestly - he has no idea who you are, what you’ve done or what the fuck you’re capable of.

_You dad is on the couch when you get home, giggling at his phone. This has been the pattern for the last month or so. The door falls shut so loud behind you that it reverberates through your chest like the clang of a funeral bell. “Is mom home?” you ask, already so fucking tired._

_“No,” your dad answers, not looking up from his phone. “You need something, champ?”_

_You approach the couch quietly. Loom over him until it gets so awkward that he has to look at you. You’re short, but you know how to square your shoulders and set your legs so that you take up space. Psychological space, if not physical space._

_“Stop it,” you say. Your voice is very soft, extremely controlled. Your dad quirks an eyebrow._

_“Stop what?”_

_You clench your teeth. “You know what I’m talking about.”_

_“Oh, for_ fuck’s _sake, Kyle. Not this again!” he sighs, going 0-60 on that gaslight-adjacent tone of voice he often effectuates, the one meant to make you feel like you’re tipping at windmills. “I’m not “trolling” any of your little school friends this time. It’s not even local shit - I mostly hang out on political forums now. In fact, you’d hate these guys I’m going after - they’re all delusional Garrison die-hards!”_

_“I know.” You don’t move._

_“Okay, then what’s the big deal? If I’m going after people who deserve it, why does it even_ matter _?”_

_“Because -” your voice starts rising, so fast that it cracks. “- if I can track your IP, then so can the government, you fucking MORON!”_

_You slap the phone out of his hand and he gapes at you._

_“Kyle! Do you really think that’s an appropriate way to speak to your father?”_

_“I think it’s an appropriate way to speak to someone who can’t control himself even for the sake of protecting his family!”_

_“Oh please, you’re overreacting as usual. No one in South Park is going to get taken out by a government drone for meaningless comments on the internet any time soon.”_

_You wish that you could be surprised, but the absolute tranquilized complacency of adults is one of the primary reasons that the country’s gone to shit. “If you think what happened on the East Coast can’t happen here,” you growl, jabbing a finger in his face, “then you really are stupider than I thought.”_

_He has the gall to actually roll his eyes at you. “Y’know, here I thought I was talking to my teenage son, not a bent over nagging little nanny who -”_

_You don’t wait for him to finish. You pick his phone up and stalk towards the front door. The blood is rising in your ears as you pull it open, drowning out whatever stupid shit your dad is shouting as he scrambles after you. You’re practically seeing red when you throw the phone on the pavement as hard as you can. It bounces three times and lands screen-up, a scattering of hairline fractures blossoming at the corner of the Gorilla Glass. You stomp on it, grounding the heel of your boot into the center of the lock screen: a picture of your mother and Ike with Ike’s 2022 National Mathletics trophy. That does nothing to mediate your anger, so you crunch your heel into the phone again, over and over and over until the screen splinters into microfibre and the metal guts are bulging out the bottom of the casing._

_You’re breathing heavy when you finish. You turn around to see your father staring at you with pale-faced horror, one hand clutching the door-frame, the other curled over his mouth. He’s got an expression on like he just watched you beat a beloved family pet to death._

_“Kyle, you’re -”_

_“Grounded?” you interrupt. “Are you going to ground me? I’m almost sixteen, dad. You can’t keep me in my room if I don’t want to be there.”_

_“Where is all this defiance coming from? I didn’t raise you this way.”_

_“No, you raised me to do as you say, not as you do.”_

_“I swear to God, Kyle, the moment your mother gets home -”_

_“What?” you ask emotionlessly. “What happens when mom gets home? Do you really want her grilling me on why I flipped out and destroyed your phone?”_

_He has no response to that. You give the busted phone one last kick before heading inside._

_“What am I supposed to tell her happened?” he asks as you pass by._

_You shrug, avoid eye contact. You have never given so few fucks about something in your entire life. He has no power over you; respect is earned, not given. He’s the one who told you that._

_“I don’t know, dad. Take some responsibility and stop expecting your fucking kids to come up with all your lies for you.”_

The couple introduces themselves as Gord and Beverly Tremblay-Levesque with such cheerful Canadian obliviousness that they don’t notice when you and Christophe decline to offer your own names back.

“You see, we were on our way to Nova Scotia, which has been relatively untouched by American aggression,” Beverly over-explains as you pass beneath the shadow of a burnt out IMAX theater.

“What’s Nova Scotia?” you ask.

“What’s Nova Scotia!” she laughs. “Can you believe this American, darling? _What’s_ Nova Scotia!”

“That’s why we’re headed there!” Gord claps. “The President doesn’t even know what the Maritimes are, so he never dropped bombs on them!”

“We’ve heard that the capital’s harbour is untouched and you can catch a ship bound for Europe from one of the old British forts in the area.”

Christophe scoffs as he lights yet another smoke.

You angle a glance at him. “What’s the problem?”

“It sounds like a fairy tale,” he says, sucking back on his cigarette. “Dezpite the unprecedented ignorance of ze current American President, I doubt he would have left one of ze most important ports in your country untouched.”

“Well, have you been there?” Gord asks.

“Not personally, _non_ , but -”

“Then how do you know?”

Christophe shakes his head and strides on ahead. “ _Bête comme ses pieds_ …” he mutters, beckoning one handed to the rest of the party. “Walk faster, would you? We are losing prezious hours.”

Beverly falls into step beside you, her moccasins going _slosh, slosh_ in the wet snow. “Are you two _together_ , then?” she asks softly.

“Well, yeah -” you answer automatically, not realizing your mistake until you see the grin breaking out across her pale face. 

“Oh, how _romantic_!” she gasps. “You’re on the _run_!” 

You throw your hands up in protest. “Wait, wait, I didn’t mean it like that! We’re just traveling together, we’re not -”

“Eh buddy, don’t worry about it!” Gord slaps you on the back, disrupting your protestations. “You’re north of the border now, you don’t have to hide! Our government and society may have collapsed, but gay marriage and sodomy is still perfectly legal in Canada!”

“No, I mean - you misinterpreted what I meant by ‘together’. He’s just accompanying me on my trip. We’re not dating.”

“What a shame,” says Beverly. “Tall, bilingual, handy outdoorsman with a good, rustic musk about him - in Canada, we’d call that a perfect catch!”

You sigh. “Look, I’m not -” _gay_? “I’ve -” _already got someone, sort of_. “I’m not interested in a relationship at the moment! I’m… focusing on my studies!” is what you say, all in a jumble.

“I see.” Gord frowns and strokes his graying beard. “Sorry for making assumptions there, pal, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’d run into a gruff Frenchman ferrying his illegal child bride across the border.”

Christophe starts laughing. Your face is so hot you bet you’re the color of ketchup. You hunch your shoulders up and pull the neck of your coat tight, right up to your chin. You don’t need to complicate this misunderstanding further by showing off the horrifying evidence of your latest series of Cartman-related blunders. You can’t even explain those to yourself, so how are you supposed to do it to complete strangers.

That must be why you’re so embarrassed. You cast a subtle glance at Christophe. He is - objectively speaking - _kind of_ handsome, beneath all the dirt and how terrible he smells: sharp cheekbones, a strong jawline, unusually dark eyes which you bet have, in the past, been mistaken for “soulful” rather than just “jaded and obnoxiously existential”. But he’s -

\- well, not really your type. Your type is nice, bookish girls. Girls that you can have an intellectual conversation with, but who don’t… _don’t_...

Okay, so once Heidi told you that you love to argue, to which you responded “ _no, I don’t, I’d, in fact, love to have a comfortable, quiet relationship with minimal disagreement._ ” To which she responded: “ _you are literally starting an argument with me about whether or not you like to argue_.”

You like to think that you know yourself pretty well, but Heidi looked at you sideway sometimes, like a person does when they’re seeing something dark move beneath the surface of the water. It always sat with you in a way that made you feel awkward and bad, skin-crawlingly so, because you recognized it as the same way you often look at Car -

“In zhere,” Christophe stops abruptly at the edge of a lot. He points his cigarette across the icy expanse of the parcade to where a Canadian Tire looms huge and cold in the distance. “A child’s footsteps fall soft and inconzistent - you see here, where ze tracks land only on ze heel. We have been following zhis trail for some time, and zhis is where it ends.”

“How do you know that it’s our son?” Beverly’s voice quakes. Gord wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t,” Christophe replies. “But neizher do you, so _taisez-vous, s'il vous plaît_.”

The broken automatic door is eased open just wide enough for a kid’s shoulders to fit through. You and the adults have to slip in sideways, picking your way over bent shopping carts and abandoned hockey sticks. The harsh Canadian winter has whisked whole banks of snow inside and coated the store’s ceiling with a thick layer of mottled ice.

“ _Maudire_ , it’z like zat one scene from Doctor Zhivago in here,” Christophe whistles, “except if Doctor Zhivago were extremely stupid.”

“You realize that no one understands any of your references, right?” you whisper.

“McDougie! Son, where are you!?” Gord shouts. His voice fails to travel above the aisles, swallowed by the muffling effect of years of accumulated snow. “Damn, it’ll take us hours to search this entire store. He could be hiding anywhere.”

“Are you completely _stupide_?” Christophe sweeps an arm around the foyer. “Zhink with your brain, _imbécile_ , and look where we are standing!” Gord scratches his head.

“Um. The checkout of an abandoned Canadian Tire?”

Christophe groans and takes an extra long drag off his smoke. “Yes. A _Canadian Tire_. Zhis is a hardware store. We have all ze tools to get ze intercom system up and working wizin minutes. Lizten -” he starts gesturing about the store wildly. “You and I will go fetch a portable generator and zome gasoline. Zhen all I will need is a conductive metal. Copper or aluminum should do - somezhing like… a golf club, or a bike frame. Rip ze skeleton out of zome patio furniture. I would ask -” he points at you. “- my _illegal child bride_ to perform zhis task for me.”

You shoot him a withering look. “You’re walking on such thin fucking ice right now, dude.”

“Luckily,” he replies, not missing a beat, “we are in a Canadian Tire and so I can easily obtain a pair of snowshoez and ice claws.”

 _So_ , you and Beverly go looking for conductive metal.

“Are you _sure_ that the two of you are not romantically involved?” she asks as you sweep through the Home & Leisure aisle. You pinch down on the bridge of your nose.

“I am _absolutely_ certain. Why do you care so much, anyway? You and I just met.”

Beverly flips her bright, orange hair over one shoulder and shoots you one of those flat-mouthed Canadian smiles that you’re so used to seeing from Ike. “With so much darkness in the world I’d like to think that kids can still fall wildly in love like Gord and I did when we were your age. If that were true, I could believe that maybe things will be okay after all. That’s the future I want for my own son.”

_To get kidnapped by the government and stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with a chain-smoking nutcase? Aim higher, m’am._

\- but something about the bittersweet tone in her voice tugs at your heartstrings.

“Would it, uh…” your voice is hatling, but the words come out anyway. “- make you feel better if I said that… I _did_ have someone?”

Her eyelashes flutter. “Oh? A sweetheart back in America?”

“S-sure.” You face away from her, eyes scanning over the shelves. You’re not really seeing anything. For some reason it’s gotten hot and stuffy under your coat. “That’s definitely a thing I just said.”

“Tell me about them.”

Oh God, are you really doing this? _Well, you see, my fat, spoiled, sociopathic childhood friend(ish) is obsessed with me and I haven’t figured out a better tactic for keeping him in line than graciously letting him suck me off once in a while. You see, it’s for the greater good_.

That’s literally what you said to Doctor Pradesh. It’s _for the greater good_.

Out loud, you say: “Well, uh, they drive me crazy, I guess. Like, you know - they're definitely the kind of person who… who always keeps you on your toes. And we have this sort of… _combustive_ relationship, so we’ve had to keep it a secret from our friends. But they - my, um, _‘sweetheart’_ , wants to…”

_\- wants to marry you. Probably has a detailed flowchart hung up somewhere in his basement laying the whole thing out..._

You grind your teeth together. “- get more serious.” You pick up a blister pack containing a wrench and turn it over to, theoretically, check the aluminum content. “I’m not sure we’re ready for that, though.”

“Why is that?” Beverly wonders.

“I think that we’re coming at the relationship from… different places,” you answer, fiddling with the seams in the plastic pack. It’s not exactly a lie. “It’s not like this person isn’t important to me. I mean - we grew up together, but it’s clear that he is _way_ more into me than I’m into him. I suppose that sounds like a pretty minor relationship problem in the grand scheme of things, but it’s kind of a big deal between us.”

“How sad for him,” Beverly says, sadly. Goddamnit, all this is doing is making you think about Butters pathetically attempting to read you the riot act back in the hospital waiting room.

Your bend the plastic around the shape of the wrench, until it starts to creak. “I think I’m giving you the impression that I’m jerking this guy around, but I have an extremely good reason to think that he’s not to be trusted in relationships, or at all. _Ever_. He’s lucky that I even talk to him, let alone allow him into my room sometimes.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I don’t know,” you murmur, letting the plastic snap back into place. You start bending it again, popping cracks into the blister. “It’s like a Catch-22 with us. We’re awful together, but I almost feel worse when we’re apart." _Nervous, twitchy. Ill at ease when Cartman's plotting out of your direct line of sight and you haven't had a good hollering match in weeks._ "Uh, sorry, that probably sounds pretty fucked up, doesn’t it?”

It takes Beverly a moment to respond. “No, Kyle. I think that sounds perfectly reasonable, actually.”

A chill runs up your back and all the way through the rest of your body. “Wait,” You notice belatedly that the warmth has gone out of her voice “I never told you that my name was -”

When you turn around she’s already got a golf club raised over her head.

You wake up - head pounding and arms bound at the wrists - with your cheek pressed into a patch of icy pavement. Christophe is right beside you, eating shit in a similar fashion.

“I fucking told you so,” he sighs. “Zhis is why you never give a homeless person twenty dollars.”

A sudden bolt of pain rocks through your skull. The world is reeling around you. The snow has picked up again; you can see it gathering in your hair just above the periphery of your vision.

“Wh-what’s happening?”

“Your _Franglais_ attack dog was right - you made a bad call.” Gord’s wool-lined boots crunch into view. He’s dragging Christophe’s gun through the slush behind him like it’s a baseball bat being prepped for a brutal bludgeoning.

“You… lied to us.” You’re too woozy to even be upset. “Why would you… lie about losing your kid?”

“We weren’t lying about everything,” says Beverly from somewhere behind you. “Our son _is_ missing. But all missing children in this part of Canada are rounded up by FBI automatons and taken to a processing camp on the border.”

“To get him back -” Gord fishes a blocky flip-phone out of his pocket. “We need something to trade. We know that this area is part of a route used by the Resistance to ferry ‘objects of value to the US Government’ to their safe-houses. And you, Kyle Broflovski, are _an object of value to the US Government_.” He crouches down so that he can shove the phone’s screen in your face.

“ _Fils de pute_!” Christophe spits. “I fucking _told_ ze Commander zat zhis route was no longer safe!”

You blink against the snow gathering on your eyelashes. Yup - that’s definitely a picture of you, all pixelated and blurry, on the whitehouse.gov website all right. So much for them not having your mugshot on every corner.

That’s not what’s getting to you about this whole situation, though. “Wait, you have cell phone service in Canada?”

Gord makes a frustrated noise in his throat and throws up his arms. “God! Yes! We have fucking cell phone coverage in Canada! This is why I _hate_ Americans - you know nothing aboot us! You think we’re all barbarians living in fuckin’ igloos!”

“Woah, dude, calm down. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that it’s, well, look around..”

“What? You think just because our country has been bombed back to the stone age we don’t get wifi? That’s so typical! Listen, guy, I bet you think we don’t get full Netflix coverage either!”

“D-do you?”

Gord pushes to his feet and shouts: “Of _course_ we fucking don’t! We only get 53% of the television content that you do, and most of that these days is embedded with propagandic broadcasts! We don’t even get _Game of Thrones_!”

“Okay,” you breath in through your teeth. “I _think_ you’re taking everything I say a bit personally. Gord, Beverly, I’m very sorry about what happened to your son, but we can talk this through and -”

Gord hauls back and fires the fucking rifle at the ground. Your heart goes _thump thump_ in your chest and the world cracks dark and silent for half a second. You scream and heave over on your back, against the angle of the ricochet, but you can’t even hear your own voice. There’s something hot and wet on your cheek; a flake of shrapnel from the blast, embedded in your skin.

“- ou _shut the fuck up_!” Gord is saying when the ringing in your ears fades.

“Jesus fucking _christ_ ,” you screech.

“The next one goes in your _head_ , buddy!”

“Gord, no,” Beverly swims into the crown of your vision and takes her husband’s arm in hers. “There’s no need for that.”

You let out a shaky breath. “Oh, thank God -”

“- we need him alive, dear. The next bullet goes in his leg.”

That’s…

That’s fucking _it_. Your temples are throbbing. Your throat is burning. You’re bleeding from two different cuts and your joints hurt and you’re still so unbelievably ashamed and embarrassed about what Doctor Pradesh accused you of back at the hospital and no one has given you a single _minute_ to process any of the shit that’s happened to you in the past forty-eight hours.

You thrash around like a fucking freshwater salmon until you’re hitched up on one elbow, staring Gord and Beverly down. “Listen, you two. I want you to _really_ think about what you’re doing.”

“Do not waste your breath, Broflovski,” Christophe says.

You ignore him. “Is this what the President has reduced us to? We’re at each other’s throats while he sits in the White House fellating himself to fake news and letting the country fall apart around him. He’s just one man - he's not the one who turned the world into a hellhole! It was us! Each and every one of us contributed to this mess by refusing to believe that there was any good left in our fellow citizens!”

“What are you getting at here, pal?” Gord squints at you with his beady, little eyes.

“What I’m getting at is that if you do this, you’re letting him win. If we want to survive and make sure that there’s a future for kids like McDougie then we can’t give into this nihilistic desire to only look out for ourselves. We have to take care of each other first, otherwise we really are fucked as a species. Christophe and I were willing to help you out, couldn’t you extend the same, neighborly consideration to us and maybe _not_ hand us over to the murderous government drones?”

Beverly and Gord look at each other for a long, cryptic moment, exchanging that weird, parental energy married couples radiate when they’re trying to decide how many weekends to ground you for. Only in this case they’re trying to decide how many bullets to put in your body.

Finally, they crack.

“My God,” Gord warbles, letting out a sob and burying his face in his wife’s shoulder. “He’s right, Bev! He’s… he’s right!”

“I know!” Beverly sobs back. “What have we become, Gord? We’re monsters! We should be the ones who get shot! Gord, give me the gun! I’ll put us out of our misery!”

“No!” you yelp. “No, no! - it’s fine! Nobody has to get shot! McDougie will be happy to see you no matter what! Can you just… untie us, please?”

“Of course,” Beverly simpers, dropping to her knees so she can cut you free with her pocket knife. You rub your wrists only to find them red and chafed almost bloody. Jesus, they bound you with fucking _zip-ties_.

“Give me the gun,” you say to Gord. He obeys - instantly, almost unconsciously. Something weird and bright passes through his eyes, but you don’t have time to process it. Christophe grabs the rifle out of your hands and shoves you behind him.

“Both of you, get back or I will blow your _fucking_ brains out,” he snarls.

“Wha-what?” says Gord, looking at his hands. “What just… happened?”

“ _Christophe_ ,” you hiss, grabbing his arm. He shakes you off and keeps the rifle aimed steady at the Canadians. “It’s okay! Everything’s okay now!”

“It’s _très certainement_ not ‘okay’,” he says, all wild-eyed and practically vibrating. “Zhey called the FBI Automaton Drones on us, which will be here witzhin minutes!”

“We did do that,” Beverly says distantly, touching her chin. “Wait, why did we… why did we untie you?”

 _What_? “I… I asked you to…”

“You did, didn’t you,” Gord mutters. “I can’t believe it, Beverly, this American boy’s gay little speech temporarily brainwashed us into losing all our sense!”

“Gord, why the fuck did you give them the gun back! By the Queen’s knickers, darling! This is what my mother meant when she said that I should have married Louis Gaston Jean Pierre Dufont Lamoureux from Moncton!”

“Oh come off it, Beverly, you never would have been sexually satisfied by a Fringlish-speaking mud-fisherman from New Brunswick!”

“At least Louis Gaston Jean Pierre Dufont Lamoureux wouldn’t have given away the fucking gun Gord!”

“Ahh - typical _Canadien_ ,” Christophe chuckles, maneuvering the gun under his armpit so that he can strike up a cigarette. “I bet you wish you had your own gun right about now, _oui_?”

Gord shakes an accusatory finger at him. “I’ll have you know that my six legally registered hunting rifles are exactly where they belong - responsibly unloaded and locked in a cabinet in the ruins of my hunting lodge!”

“Too bad for you.” Christophe raises the muzzle of the gun. “Better start running, _mon pote_.”

This can’t be fucking happening. “Don’t - Christophe, _sto_ -”

Gord and Beverly start running, dashing off in opposite directions towards the edges of Hamilton’s collapsing urban sprawl. You see Christophe’s finger twitch over the trigger almost in slow-motion. You throw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his torso, trying to get him off-balance. It works; his first shot goes wide, towards the sky. Beverly has disappeared, but Gord spins around at the sound of the rifle firing. Christophe jerks his elbow back hard and bashes you in the cheek, sending you careening with your hands over your face. You rear up in time to see him lining up a shot - clear, unobstructed and confident. You reach out but it’s too late. He fires.

Gord’s knee explodes and he goes face first into the slush, screaming like a wounded animal. Christophe turns to you, pale-faced and streaked in blood.

“Come on.” He slings the rifle over his shoulder.

“What’s going to happen to him?” you whisper.

“It does not matter, Kyle. We must leave immediately.”

“What’s _going to happen to him_?” you ask, louder.

Christophe grabs you by the upper arm - hard enough to leave bruises - and begins dragging you towards the harbor.

_You’re staring at the ceiling when you hear rocks hitting your window. Small rocks, thankfully. The week after you had the deadbolt installed on your window, Cartman sent a huge chunk of basalt through the glass using some sort of Butters-operated homemade slingshot. He’s a lot more subtle now that he’s got good reason to want to be in your room without anyone knowing._

_You throw the window open and snarl: “use the ladder, retard!” Then you crawl back into bed and wait for him to huff and puff his way up to the second floor. You’re too exhausted to fight tonight. Also, a little lonely. You don’t like talking about your problems; you’d rather solve them, but you’re staring down the barrel of a bunch of self-made bullshit with no obvious solutions._

_The mattress dips beneath Cartman’s weight and you slip right into the crevice, your back pressed up against his thigh. You don’t say anything though, or even look at him. You can hear him rapping his fingers against his knee; the pattern is erratic and impatient. Waiting Cartman out is basically shooting fish in a barrel but you derive satisfaction from it anyway._

_“Well, well, good evening to you too, Bonshte the Silent.”_

_You press your eyes shut. “What the hell is Bonshte the Silent?”_

_“A sad little parable about a passive Jewish worker who never learns his proper value under early capitalism and suffers for his terrible mistake. ”_

_You roll over to glare at him. “Where do you come up with these references? Do you just go through the wikipedia page on Jewish characters every day looking for anti-semitic caricatures to compare me to?”_

_“Isaac Leib Peretz, who wrote Bonshte, was himself a Jew. Tsk, tsk Kyle. You should really make an effort to engage more actively with your culture if you don’t want people to start calling you a Latke.”_

_“Why would they call me a -”_

_You get it the moment Cartman opens his mouth to explain._

_“Crispy Jew on the outside, Gentile on the inside,” the two of you say in tandem. You sigh._

_“Why are you here?”_

_“Because you didn’t come to our CoD meetup tonight and Stan spent the entire fucking match drunk and sobbing over voice-chat about how his life is over because his bitchy girlfriend just broke his heart.”_

_You sit up. “Wait, Wendy broke up with him? Again?”_

_“No, asshole -" Cartman purses his lips and wags a finger at you. "I’m talking about you.”_

_Oh jesus, not this again. You run you hands over your face. “Cartman, how many times do I have to tell you that Stan and I are not, and never have been, dating.”_

_“Yeah, sure, but you fags always argue like you’re dating. I’ve never seen two dudes get in girlier fights. ”_

_“As opposed to you and I, who definitely fight like men.”_

_“Nah.” You feel the mattress shift as Cartman glides closer. He winds a lock of your hair around his finger and pulls it taut. “You and I fight like I’m the sexy delivery man breaking in to the house to fuck you while your husband’s away at work.”_

_You slowly peel your hands from your face. “What do you want, Cartman?”_

_He lets your hair bounce back into place. “If you can’t bitch to Stan, then you have to bitch to_ someone _, otherwise all that sand is going to get clogged up in your system and you’ll explode. I’m performing a public service here, Kyle.”_

_“You… want to hear about my problems.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“You want… to,” you tip your head, not quite believing what you’re hearing. “-_ talk. _”_

_“Yeah.”_

_You stare at him. “Cartman, we don’t… do that.”_

_“What the hell are you talking about, Kyle? We talk every fucking day!”_

_“No, Cartman,” you poke him in the blubber above his collarbone. “We_ argue _“every fucking day”.”_

_He grins at you - snake-like, self-satisfied - and dips his voice into a musical lilt. “Arguing is talking. In fact, it can even be said that argumentation is the most intimate form of conversation.”_

_“Do you really believe that?”_

_“Does_ Stan _know the intricacies of your position on the Palestine-Israeli conflict in the era of President Garrison?”_

_“You know that Stan doesn’t care about politics.”_

_“What about the real reason you didn’t go out with Annie when she had a crush on you back in seventh grade?”_

_“That whole situation was entirely your fault, Cartman. You don’t get any points for that.”_

_Cartman starts listing things off on his fat fingers. “Does he know about your horrendous skin care routine, or all the delusional reasons you still defend Metal Gear Solid 4 as a good game, or that you were considering getting a nose job for a while? Does he know why you won’t eat blue M &Ms, or how many saltine crackers you can stuff in your mouth at once, or your real opinions about the Obama administration? Or any of the other shit I know about you specifically because we argue?”_

_You open your mouth to protest, but at this point it would just be proving his point. Your gaze drifts to the ceiling. “... no, he doesn’t,” you murmur._

_You trust Stan with your life, with your secrets, with your heart. The only thing you trust Cartman with is the fact that you have never once failed to kick his ass when he deserved it._

_“So fuckin’ talk to me.”_

_It comes out automatically._

_“It’s my dad,” you say, still looking at the ceiling. There are star-shaped patches where the paint is darker there, and little scabs of congealed glue in the pattern of a glow-in-the-dark galaxy that you only peeled off last year. “I’ve been keeping… a pretty big secret of his for a long time now. And it’s not for his sake either. I’m doing it for my mom.”_

_Cartman opens his mouth, but you shove your hand against it before he can say anything stupid about your mother._

_“Just listen, okay. I swear to God, Cartman, if you say anything dumb I’m going to throw your fat ass out that window spine first. Do you understand me?”_

_He nods, eyes wide and lucid. You take your hand away._

_“My problem is that I honestly want to see my dad punished for what he’s done. But I doubt it would amount to anything resembling justice. Not in the world we live in now. And it would destroy my mother. I believe that when making a difficult decision you should always weigh the amount of good it brings into the world against the amount of harm it does. But with this… I keep wondering, how can something be right and wrong at the same time?”_

_Cartman rolls his eyes. “Wow, I can’t believe that Kyle Broflovski has finally seen a single shade of gray! Welcome to the real world, it sucks ass.”_

_“Is that you whole take?”_

_“No, my whole take is that it sounds like you’ve got your dad’s balls in a vice so he should probably show you a little more respect. If I were you I’d be making him wipe my ass and lick my boots clean once a day.”_

_You let out a soft, unpleasant laugh. “If only.”_

_Cartman scooches over and cups your chin in one of his big, fat hands that always smell and feel like he uses way too much moisturizer. You just let him do it. You even relax into the touch a little. Enough that you’re not prepared for the shit that immediately comes out of his mouth._

_“Do you want to kill him?” he whispers into the space where your breath is mingling. “I’ll help. We could do it together.”_

_You hear the words one at a time. Your brain has to click back and re-hear them a few times fully processing it. “Wh-_ WHAT? _” you squeak, way too fucking loud for three in the morning._

_Cartman clamps a hand over your mouth. The other hand starts sliding up your thigh. “C’mon, Kyle. Do you seriously think we wouldn’t pull it off? You and me putting our heads together - there’s no way we’d get caught.”_

_You pry his hand off your mouth: “That’s not the_ problem, _fat ass.”_

_“What’s the big fucking deal? I killed my dad and didn’t even get charged with a misdemeanor.”_

_“Oh yeah, and as a result you’re the perfect model of mental health.”_

_“No, you’re missing the important part, Kyle: I. Got. Away. With. It.”_

_“You got away with it for the same reason you get away with almost everything,” you hiss. “You had it done indirectly. But I’m not like you, Cartman. I’d have to…”_

_You’d have to what?_

_“- do it myself,” you finish, so quietly you’re not sure he even heard you._

_For a moment, you actually consider it. You’ve let Cartman talk you into weirder things. Not worse things, mind you, but things that you were less personally invested in. You shut your eyes and imagine the two of you kicking the body down a ravine together. Visualize the paper trail you’d have to leave to put the police off the scent. Think about how you could say perfectly curt, nice things at the funeral and then wash your hands of the entire mess. Your mother would definitely get over a tragic, unexpected death much faster than she’d forgive her husband and sons lying to her for five years. It’d be easy to put some dumb, deadly idea in your dad’s head too. Your dad loves the idea of doing manly, outdoorsy activities like ice fishing and white water rafting and, fucking, bare-hand bouldering or whatever. He loves the_ idea, _not the literal activity. But his ego is like an over-inflated balloon: humongous, and so fragile that he can be indirectly goaded into doing just about anything._

_So, if you did it…_

_If you did it, all you’d have to do afterwards was keep another secret for the rest of your goddamn life with only Eric Cartman for company._

_Cartman’s hand starts to climb your thigh, obviously aiming to stroke right up the length of your cock. You grab his wrist and twist so hard that he lets out a wussy little welp of pain._

_“Not gonna happen.”_

_“But -”_

_“I’m not going to get off to the thought of murdering my father, Cartman,” you say, opening your eyes so that you can glower at him from under your eyelashes._

_“Fine. Christ, Kyle, you’re so repressed you could re-virginize an entire convent of slutty nuns just by walking in the front door.”_

_“I’m not repressed. I’m just not a fucking psychopath like you.”_

_“Bitch, bitch, bitch - are we killing your dad or what?”_

_You shake your head. “I still love my dad,” you say softly. Hollowly. Cartman, for a moment, looks like he doesn’t believe you. He leans forward so that he’s about two inches from your face and squints at you. His eyes are an unusual shade of brown: so fair that they suck up light and dark more efficiently than a solar panel. In the pale cast of moonlight they’re so clear it’s like he’s looking right through your skin._

_The thing about you and Cartman is that half the time he can’t see past the towering projection of you he’s built in his mind; the other half of the time, he see things about you other people don’t. Whatever he's seeing this time, it burns itself out bright and quick. He scoffs, and crosses his arms petulantly._

_"Whatever. I don’t give a fuck either way - considering how you never want to help me out when_ I _need someone killed, I don’t actually owe you shit. I only offered out of the goodness of my generous, gentile heart.”_

_“God, shut up,” you mutter, grounding a palm into your forehead. He does, but you can still hear him breathing - a little unsteady, for some reason. You move your fingers apart and look at him: he’s chewing his lip, eyes flickering towards the window._

_With a heavy sigh, you slide into the space between his crossed legs. The creak of the mattress is gunshot loud in the absolute silence of that weird space between midnight and 6AM. The Russians call it ‘The Hour of the Wolf’. Actually, you’re not sure if that’s true, or you just heard it on some dumb sci-fi show once. You have no idea why, but you rest your cheek on Cartman's shoulder and crawl your hands up around his back. You actually hear him stop breathing for a moment when you do it._

_“Cartman,” you whisper into his scarf. “You can stay for a bit. But only if you shut the fuck up.”_

_“Gay,” he whispers back. You bury your face in his chest and start to laugh._

You flee Hamilton under cloak of heavy snowfall. Your coat is no protection against the blistering wind, and nothing in the world could be a salve to your mood right now. You’re so pissed off by the time Christophe pulls you into an abandoned farmhouse to rest that you feel almost nothing at all, like striking a blade against a whetstone for so long that you grind the entire thing to fucking dust.

“Why did you do that?” you ask tonelessly, watching Christophe set up some sort of trip wire alarm along the bottom of the barn doors.

“It was us or zhem,” he replies, brusque and unapologetic.

“If that’s how you feel, then why not just blow his head off? What you did was just... cruel.”

Christophe stands up and runs an exasperated hand through his hair. “Ze drones can sniff out humans even in a snowstorm. We needed a diztraction.”

Your fingers curl into your palms. “That’s… the most fucked up thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth yet.”

“Well, I am _sorry_ Emperor Broflovski ze First, but your life matters more zhan zheirs.”

“How can you say that!?” you shout, taking a step forward. “ _No_ one’s life matters more than anyone else’s!”

“While you are perhaps right philosophically, in practice you are woefully naive. If you were to fall once more into ze government’s hands, we would not get you back again.”

“What? Because of my _stupid, fake_ psychic powers!?”

He shrugs, then digs out a cigarette and his lighter.

You slap them out of his hand. “Would you fucking look at me when I’m talking to you!”

He looks at you. _Down_ at you. The bags under his eyes are black in the dim light.

“Are you telling me,” you grit out, “that you basically killed that guy over a _misunderstanding_?”

“Mizter Broflovski, at some point you are going to have to get over zhis ridiculous hang-up about -”

“What’s ridiculous,” you interrupt, “- is everyone trying to convince me that fake things are real!”

“You want ze facts, but you won’t look objectively at evidence from your own life. I have also read your file and -”

You spin around on your heel and cross your arms, hands right up into your armpits. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

“When you were eight years old you convinced Fidel Castro to willingly abdicate his position and submit Cuba onze again to American imperialist policies. Pray tell what do you zhink _zat_ was about? Do you zhink zat you are such a _persuasive_ writer zat you could single-handedly change ze fate of an entire country?”

“I said: I _don’t want to hear it_!” the walls of the barn begin to shudder violently. It’s just the wind, you tell yourself. It’s gotta be the wind. You press your eyes shut and try to practice your breathing exercises, but your heart is battering the cage of your ribs like a dying bird.

“I think zat zhis is not about logic and evidence,” Christophe says, “but rather some deeper issue zat you have refused to acknowledge. We still have some hours until Toronto - perhaps you should use zat time for serious self-reflection.”

“You know what,” you whisper. “Fuck this.”

“What was zat?”

You turn back to face him. To brush past him. “Fuck this,” you say again. “I’m going home.”

“Really,” Christophe replies flatly.

“Yes, _really_!”

“You are going to walk all ze way back to Colorado on your own? Zat is your plan?”

“It’s better than staying here with you!” you shout, and go to push the barn doors open.

He grabs you and that is _one time too fucking many_ that he’s manhandled you. You tug back so hard that it yanks him off balance. The two of you go stumbling and rolling around in the rotten hay, pushing against each other with knees and elbows. When you try to scramble to your feet, he grabs you by the hair and slams your face into the dirt. You thrash against his stomach and he does it again, grounds your cheek right into the shitty smelling mud. You roll onto your back just to get the dirt out of your mouth, but he pins you down with an arm across your collarbone and a knee between your legs.

“I have had enough of your delicate, self-righteous _bullcrap_ , Kyle Broflovski!” he barks, dripping spittle on your face. His eyes are pulled so wide you can see red veins at the edges. “If you want to throw yourzelf in front of a bullet, you will not be doing it on _my_ watch, you overly-precious, self-important little _connasse_! I have a mission to get you to Toronto alive and I will accomplish it even if I have to hogtie your limbs togetzher and drag you behind me like a fucking human toboggan! Do you _understand_ , or do I have to collar you like a cur and tie you to a post in zhis barn to make sure you stay ze fuck _put_!”

You can feel a high flush rising in your face. You’re sick and dizzy, caught in that strange space between rage and arousal you desperately wish you were less familiar with. Your mouth is filling with saliva, breath coming in so short that there’s no way he hasn’t noticed it. Your pupils must be the size of the goddamn moon. You pull your knees up around him, but all it does is slot you closer together.

When you speak, you can’t believe how calm you sound.

“What I understand,” you breathe, making eye-contact so steady it could drill to the center of the Marianas Trench. “Is that you need to get the hell off me.”

He blinks, and something goes fuzzy behind his eyes. Slowly, he pushes off you. You take a moment to catch your breath before staggering to your feet, running a hand through your hair to shake the hay out of your curls. You and Christophe stare at each other for what feels like a torturous, dark hole of an eternity. Are either of you going to acknowledge what just happened? What _happens_ when you do?

You break first:

“You… fucking _asshole_!” you snap, and take a swing at him.

He dodges it easily, laughing with infuriatingly genuine amusement. “Good, _good_ \- finally, an inch of self-preservation in you! Zat passion will save your life!”

“Stop condescending to me, you French piece of shit!”

He catches your second punch, palm around your fist, and bends your arm back. Bends you right into his embrace and kisses you. 

It’s sort of dumb to be like, _oh people kiss like their personality_ , when you’ve only kissed two people for “real” in your life, but in your limited experience it’s been true. Heidi kissed politely and with an approach that was almost methodical. Very sweet, very accommodating, very eleven years old. Cartman kissed you greedy and breathless like it was the only chance he was going to get, which was unusually prescient of him. Christophe is biting into your mouth like a rabid dog - messy and unpredictable and with an intensity that bursts open the scab on your bottom lip where you chewed it raw days ago. Which is... which is exactly what you need, but -

But - 

You put your hands on his chest and push some space between you. “What are you doing?”

He looks horrified. “I am sorry, is zat not where zhis was going? Did I… misinterpret the energy of zhis situation?”

“No, no. It’s fine. But what’s with the -” you gesture to the way he’s holding you.

“- _Gone With the Wind_ shit? I’m a dude, dude. Come on - don’t kiss me like I’m a girl.”

Christophe raises both his eyebrows. “Well, _your majesty_ , how would you _like_ to be kissed?”

Your feel yourself go red all over again. “I… I don’t know. I’m not exactly… uh, _experienced_ in this kind of thing.”

“Oh really,” Christophe drawls, tugging at the collar of your coat. “Zhen what are zhese?”

You bat his hand away. “Hey - I didn’t say I’d never fooled around.”

“You have fooled around, but no kissing?”

“Is that really so weird?”

“ _Un peu_ , yes. Are you saying zat I am _not_ ze other woman?”

“Jesus christ,” you twist yourself free and hold up three fingers. “Okay: yes, I have fooled around before. No, I’m not technically cheating on anyone. Yes, I’m still a virgin... _ish_ , so no butt stuff, hands only. Are we good?”

“I am not sure where you zhink we would get ze appropriate materials for “butt” “stuff”, unless you assume zat I carry KY Jelly on my person like some sort of roving pervert…”

You jab him in the ribs. “Look, Christophe, do you need me to get an STD test as well, or are you gonna let me touch your filthy dick while we both obviously think about other people?”

“ _Merde_ , but you are pushy.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

What he does about it is seize the front of your coat, shove you up against the wall and kiss you so hard that you stop breathing or thinking straight.

“Better?”

You nod, numb and bruise-lipped. “Y-yeah. That’s… that’s fine.” The wind batters at the doors of the barn and, for a little while, you get to think about nothing at all.

“You should sleep,” you murmur into Christophe’s shoulder. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Who said zat at any point during zhis journey you would be taking watch at all?”

You roll into a sitting position and stare down at him through half-lidded eyes. “You look like shit.”

“I always look like shit.”

“I’m not arguing with you. If you trust me enough to make out with me, you should trust me enough to watch your back for a couple hours. I’ll be fine, dude.”

Christophe furrows his brow. “Ah… zhis is zat ‘basic human empathy’ you value so highly.”

You smile at him, even though he’s mocking you. “Yeah. Soak it up, asshole, I bet you don’t get spoiled very often, so take advantage of it.”

“Whatever,” Christophe waves you off and turns over on his side. “My perimeter alarm will go off if anyzhing serious ha -” he yawns, “happens a… anyway… so I suppose it’z… not a… huge… sacri… sacrif..” he falls asleep in the middle of a sentence and starts snoring. Hmm, that’s kind of cute actually. You set a hand on his back just to make sure he’s not faking it. You feel how slow he’s breathing, the rate of his heartbeat, and it finally hits you that you just got a little further than "hands only" with a guy you once watched die. 

Life’s pretty fucked up sometimes, huh.

 _Not technically cheating_. The words ring through your head over and over again. Your gaze bores into the wall of the barn as you try to categorize how you feel. It’s like when you peel a scab off too early and the skin underneath is all porous and the colour of fresh computer paper. It’s not good or bad, it just is.

“Ha ha,” you say out loud. “What the fuck.”

The storm has died down outside and there’s moonlight coming into the barn through the slats in the roof. You stretch and get to your feet, then you go fetch Christophe’s rifle from where it’s resting on a bale of hay. The muzzle is still splattered with Gord’s blood.

You kick around the backyard of the barn until you’ve collected enough bottles, cans and greasy mason-jars to make yourself a rudimentary little shooting gallery. You arrange the targets in a neat line on a fence at the far end of the field and then dig the remnants of a napkin out of your pocket to stuff your ears.

“What is crooked will not be straightened,” you whisper to yourself, lining the sight up with the first bottle. “What is missing cannot be counted.”

 _Bang_.

You wince at the sound of the blast and nearly buckle under the kickback. The bullet goes nowhere near its target. It simply disappears into the dark sky.

Do better next time, you tell yourself. Remember all the advice Stan’s uncles gave you back in the day: square your feet, keep your shoulders loose. _Look your prey right in the eyes_.

“I communed with my heart saying, _lo_ \- I am come to great… to great -” You can’t quite remember the verse. It’s been years since you’ve done anything traditional for _Sukkot_ , let alone consistently attended Synagogue. “I am come to… _fucking Canada_ , and gotten more wisdom than all those that have been before me in my shitty, little, podunk mountain town…”

 _Bang_.

Your second shot shears close to one of the cans, setting it spinning off its axis. It hits the snow with a wet thud. 

_Better_.

“ _Yea_ , my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge…” you relax your stance, take a deep breath through your nose. The rifle feels light in your grasp. The moon is so bright it makes the snow look like still water. Like Stark’s Pond on a clear day.

You line up the shot again. 

“- and he who increases in knowledge -” you pull the trigger. “Increases in pain.”

The bottle shatters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading 14k of my Extremely Canadian jokes.
> 
> find me at: https://dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com/


	6. La Resistance

Toronto looms tall on the horizon hours before you hit the city limits: dark, shattered, but not flattened, not entirely. There’s a metaphor in that, you think. A good one, a bad one. Something in between. You’re too tired and cold to hype yourself up about it either way. Christophe forced you to “sleep” before leaving the farmhouse, but all you did was stare intensely at the back of your eyelids and think. About Toronto. About what happened to Gord and Beverly. About the most efficient way to reload a pump-action hunting rifle.

The energy between you and Christophe has shifted somewhat. Somewhere between the suburbs and the edge of the city center, he notices you huddling against the wind and stops to give you his scarf.

“ _Please_ don’t actually start treating me like your illegal child bride,” you say as he dips down to wrap it around your shoulders

“Do not read zo deep into it,” he replies, and flicks cigarette ash in your face.

You try not to because as awful as the scarf smells, it’s also warm as hell. You hastily shove it under the front of your coat, pull it as tight as you can, wind the long tail up between your hands so your can wrench it around your fingers as you pass by the endless rows of abandoned townhouses and burnt out station wagons. It looks like all these people had time to evacuate, but just like the towns at the border you can’t help but wonder where they went. You stare at the ground, at the steady progress of your footsteps in the snow, one after another. 

The shadows above you get long, start to block out the light. The moon is so full tonight that it brightens up the clouds, spreading diffuse light between the wrecked skyscrapers in sharp, snow-flecked beams. You smear the snow off the road with your toe as you walk. There is metal and glass fused into the pavement.

Christophe shoots out an arm to stop you from moving forward so abruptly that you barrel right into it like a fucking moron. You look at him to see his eyes tracking upwards, towards the overhang of the intersection you’re at. A tower has been erected here, from stained plywood and discarded billboards. Slowly, he pulls a mirror from his front pocket and holds it up against the moonlight. It flashes staccato as he does some sort of… dorky, military-esque morse-code... thing. After a few tense moments, something flashes back. 

A figure unfolds from the top of the lookout, throwing their cloak off as they rise to full height. The lookout is diminutive: wheat-colored hair turning white under the glare of the moon, dwarfed by the sniper rifle clutched in their hands.

“What’s the password?” he calls down in a lilting, British accent.

“It’s me, _branleur_!” Christophe calls back.

“It’s _who_? I’m sorry, it’s been so very long since I’ve seen a Frenchman in these parts, and they all look the same to me.”

“ _Mon dieu_ , Phillip, do not be difficult. I am barely ten hours late!”

“Wait, _wait_ -” you look up, then at Christophe - who is mashing a palm into his forehead - then back up again. You know that name. You know that _voice_ \- it can’t be. Like, literally, it’s not possible. “ _Pip_!? Is that you!?”

A beat of silence. The guard steps into the light. Even though he’s thirty feet up, you recognize him immediately. Pip Pirrip looks exactly as you would expect all grown up: dainty, blindingly blonde and “ever so” foppish. 

“How do you know my -” he trails off when his gaze meets yours and his eyes pop all the way open in recognition.

“Is that… _Kyle_? Kyle Broflovski from Mr. Garrison’s third grade class?”

You grin and push your hat back to show your face. “Yeah! Pip, it’s been… _years_! How have you been?”

Pip's response is a nasty scowl, and also to raise his rifle and take a shot at you. Not _directly_ at you, but the bullet goes _kra-kow-BOOM_ like a thunderclap a foot or two above your head. You shriek and jump behind Christophe.

“What the _fuck_! I’m glad to see you, and you take a fucking shot at me!?”

“You’re glad to see me!?” Pip fumes. “Did you think we were _friends_!?”

“Uhhh…” you dig your fingers into Christophe’s biceps. “Y-yeah, I guess?”

Pip cocks the rifle again and lines his eye up with the sight. “You _tortured_ me! You and your horrid little jock friends made my life a _living hell_ and you expect me to be _glad_ to see you!? How _very American_ of you, Kyle!”

“Jesus christ, Pip, I was eight years old!”

“My name!” he shouts. “Is _Phillip_!”

He takes another shot. This one blasts the window out of the abandoned Tim Hortons behind you. 

“Christophe,” you hiss, shaking him. “Talk some sense into him!”

Christophe takes an overlong drag off his smoke before lazily tipping his head back. “Phillip. How about we take him to ze Commander before we decide his fate, _oui_?”

Pip sighs loudly and raises the muzzle of his gun. “ _Fiiine_!” He slings the rifle over his shoulder and slides down the watchtower ladder to meet you.

Now that he’s one the ground, you can see that he’s still dressed like a 19th century fop despite it being the year of his lord 2024. Old habits die hard, you guess, adjusting your ushanka. “Well then,” he says. “If you are coming, let us make haste.”

“Um…” you’re getting a strange sense of deja vu, following Pip down the ruined street. You can’t deny that you’re looking right at him, but your last memory of him is vivily and gruesomely final. Digging up childhood memories definitely seems like the wrong approach here, but you can't stop yourself from asking… “Pip… I mean, _Phillip_ … no offense, but didn’t I… see you die?”

“Why, yes, I do believe you did,” he responds. Curt. Matter-of-fact. 

_Uh, okay?_ “Then how are you alive?”

“I’m _not_ ,” he says. And that’s all he says.

Pip leads you through a catacombs of hollowed out skyscrapers and abandoned banks, down towards where the business district of the city meets the shore of the Lake Ontario. The moon cuts through the gaps in the rubble in thick, hazy blades. The silver light has an eerie effect on the minimalistic Canadian architecture making you feel like you’re sliding sideways through a 2D plane - a slow, inevitable descent through the immaterial half-light, nothing to hold onto and only dark water below. It reminds you, for some weird fucking reason, of being trapped in one of those dumb water-labyrinth things they always used to have at Dairy Queen when you were a kid. You can remember Kenny pitching his last penny into it every time you guys visited, hoping that he’d finally win a banana split. You can also remember how Cartman - shovelling four scoops of strawberry sundae into his dumb fucking mouth - would always say: _“What a surprise, seeing a poor person piss their money away instead of doing literally anything else with it. This is why the poor stay poor - they’re always doing stupid shit like playing the lottery.”_ To which Kenny would reply: _“Fuck off, Eric.”_

At the time you kinda - _silently_ , and definitely never in front of Stan - agreed with Cartman. You were _sooooo_ proud of your handsome junior savings account, built off your twenty dollar weekly allowance of course, but in retrospect… what the fuck was Kenny going to do with one whole cent? Put it in the bank? A chill goes through your whole body remembering what a dick you’ve been, and thinking about how it might be a long time before you get to see your friends again and apologize to them for being a dick, and realizing that South Park is probably going to burn to the ground with you around to make sure shit doesn’t get out of hand. Because that’s… that’s sort of what you do, right? Try your best to keep a stopgap on all the crazy constantly rampaging through the streets of your deceptively quiet mountain town.

Unbidden, the voice of that creepy Government doctor with the plastic face comes back to haunt you.

_‘South Park... a town that’s long been under the sway of your Level 10 Cerebokenesis…’_

What if...

Okay, so you _suppose_ with all the crazy shit you’ve seen in your life that maybe - not that you’re a psychic or anything, that part’s definitely a misunderstanding - but maybe, in some other mysterious, cosmic way, those Government agents were onto something. Maybe there isn’t something specifically weird about _you_ , but there is definitely something weird about the place you were born. When… whenever it was that you were born there. 2008, 1990. What the fuck ever. A truthful, logical explanation is not always the most obvious one; it’s the one that holds up best when abstracted the furthest away from the original point of contention. Sometimes explanations like that need to be abstracted to make sense in the first place, so you have to… you have to look at this from much, much further away than you’ve had a chance to yet.

Your extremely stupid reverie is interrupted by Christophe leaning down to tap you on the shoulder. “Are you okay, Kyle?”

You wrap your hands around your arms and pull out of his shadow. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’m just suffering from some of that aimless Jewish Guilt and Self-Righteousness again. I didn’t want to bore you with my endless _kvetching_.”

Christophe slows his pace so that he can make eye contact with you. And then he cocks an eyebrow. You sigh.

“What the hell, dude, are you my mom now or what?” Your mom _definitely_ would have shot Gord in the head, not the leg.

No: she would have strangled him to death with her bare hands. Shit, you hope Ike’s keeping an eye on her like you asked.

Christophe looks affronted for about 0.2 seconds, but recovers quickly - and stereotypically - with a haughty, french snort and a puff of smoke. “You do realize zat I do not get paid if you die of some maidenly fainting disorder just two hundred metres from where it iz I am to deliver you. Zhis would be a severe inconvenience to me.”

Ahead of you, Pip starts giggling. “By jove, Christophe! You are so bloody predictable!”

“ _Merde_ , don’t start, Phillip.”

“Don’t start, don’t be difficult - Kyle’s right. You really do sound like someone’s overbearing Jewish mother.”

“Hmmm - I am not entirely certain it iz appropriate for a _rosbif_ to make a Jew joke conzidering all the historical variables.”

“ _Rosbif_?” Pip, sniper rifle slung over his shoulder, gives Christophe a fey little golf clap at that. “You had to go well before even my time to dig that one out of the archaic etho-slur bin.”

“What? You would prefer I call you an _inselaffe_?”

Pip stops walking - both to sigh, and to pull a piece of flatboard away from the wall, revealing a secret passage beneath. “Oh, toss off Christophe.” He flips his hair before ducking into the tunnel. It glints gold in the moonlight. “You’re not even real French. You’re _Quebecois_.” 

Christophe takes a long inhale off his cigarette. The exhale that follows is even longer. “We used to date,” he says.

“Oh my _God_. Are you guys being serious right now?”

“Yes,” Christophe takes your arm and pulls you into the dark passage. “It iz true. My fathzer was Canadian and I was born in Quebec.”

“No, you -” you tug your arm free. “Ugh, never fucking mind. I don’t wanna know.”

“Christophe dearest is being ever so obtuse intentionally,” Pip calls back. “There is nothing he loves more than being cruelly denigrated by an effeminate twink.”

Is he talking about you? Is that what this conversation is about? You gotta admit, you’re having a bit of a mental flatline here trying to wrap your brain around the idea that you fooled around with Pip Pirrup’s sloppy seconds. “Woah, I’m not a -”

Christophe interrupts you. “Yes Phillip, you have caught me. It iz my humblest wish to have been shot dead at your feet like ze godless mongrel zat I am.”

“Not my feet surely,” Pip replies breezily. “I’m immune to such sweet talk after Estella.”

“I’m not… a twink…” you mutter. Neither of them are listening to you.

“Well!” Pip claps, tone cheerful. “I do hope that we have gotten all this romantic drama out of our systems. One would not wish to be improper when we meet with… w-with the -” you’ve reached the end of the tunnel, but Pip cannot seem to pry to the metal door open. “- th-the… the… Commander. _Drat_ \- a little help please, Christophe?”

“Oh, so we are going to see ze Commander directly zhen?” Christophe asks, brushing past you. Pip steps out of the way, elegant as a ripple gliding through still water.

“Of course, this one -” he points at you with his thumb, but does not _look_ at you. “Well, the Seer says that he is _special_.”

Christophe grunts, and braces a foot against the wall to give him leverage with the door, which is frozen shut. “Nn, well, _good_. I have some _very specific_ constructive criticizm zat I would like for ze Commander to hear immediately and - _fff_ -” The ice cracks and the door pops open, sending a shock of cold wind rattling down the narrow passageway. Christophe flexes his hands. “- _directly_.”

You shiver, and follow Pip and Christophe out into the street. There’s a lot of weird things that have zoomed right by you in this conversation, like the words ‘seer’, ‘special’, ‘ _inselaffe_ ’ and ‘twink’. You focus on something constructive.

“Who’s this ‘Commander’ you keep talking about? Do you still work with that weird British kid, the one who loved musical numbers?” You furrow your brow, trying to remember his poncy face. “What was his name… Gregory?”

Christophe groans.

“We don’t say his name,” Pip informs you.

“Really?” The street is choked with the skeletons of what were probably at some point cars. You stop to pull yourself over the heat-fused wreckage. “This feels like the kind of thing he’d be all over. I mean, during the first American-Canadian War, all me and my friends wanted was to be able to say ‘fuck’ without getting grounded. He seemed like a True Believer…”

“Ze ‘ _True Believer_ ’,” Christophe grumbles. “Haz an adjunct teaching position at Oxford.”

“Well, he still funnels money into the good fight, at least,” Pip says. “He sends us a meaty stipend each month.”

“Hmph. What elze would he do with his trust fund? _I_ funnel ze stipend into my _own_ trust fund -” Christophe bites into his cigarette hard, and produces one of his endless cognac flasks, sloshing it demonstratively. “And zhen I - much like ze ruling class does with zheir ill-gotten wealth - literally _piss_ it away.”

You pause, hands and knee braced on the hood of a blackened mini-van, and give Christophe a withering look. “Has anyone ever told you that you have issues, dude.”

“My mothzer,” Christophe replies, knocking back a good, long shot of liquor. “Every time she tells me how much she regrets not rending ze limbs from ze corpse of my fetus while I was still in vitro.”

You let out a low whistle. “Wow. Cool.” Pip shoots you a look over his shoulder. When you lock gazes with him, he rolls his eyes.

Christophe, you’ve discovered during the forty-eight hours you’ve spent with him, is brilliant at many things: shooting, wildness survival, semiotics, french kissing, and yeah - he is a top tier expert at fucking killing a conversation. You make the rest of the trip through the graveyard of square-wheeled cars in uneasy silence. Pip beckons you down under the street, into the Toronto subway system.

It’s damp in the train tunnels, but at least there’s no wind. You emerge in an intact station; follow the broken escalators up through a hallway of glass-encased stairwells. The corridors are clogged with snow and warped layers of ice that makes it look like the glass is dripping under its own weight. Beyond the stairwells, is a food-court. Fog and dust drifts down from above, turning to mist when it hits the air inside the station. All the signs have been either vandalized or destroyed. _‘Death to all Americans!!!’_ shouts the red spray-paint scrawled across the busted Panda Buffet menu. _‘Supersize my Dick in your Ass Buddy!’_ reads one of the broken McDonald’s self-serve stations. You bite the inside of your mouth.

Pip stops suddenly. He turns to you and starts fussing with the collar of your coat, making sure the lapels are straight, fastening the top button closed over Christophe’s disgusting scarf.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask him. He answers in a voice as pleasant and bright as a windchime.

“You must look prim and proper when meeting with the rest of the Council,” he titters. “- to compensate for the garbage that comes out of your mouth.”

You watch him go with a frown. Who ever would have guessed that Pip, of all people, would grow up to be so _brutal_.

“It is okay,” Christophe chuckles as he passes by. “I always go to see ze council looking and speaking like shit.”

“Smelling like it too,” you murmur. He gives you the middle finger, but he’s smiling.

You glide through the dust and shadows in silence. “Here we are,” Pip whispers, and a glint of red cuts through the hazy air. A figure emerges from the fog: discrete and fuzzy at first, but the image congeals like a blot clot when you squint your eyes. It’s almost a perfect mirror of the dream you had after passing out at the hospital, except this time what walks out of the smoke isn’t human.

“Hello again, Kyle,” says Leslie Meyers: curt, mechanical, not looking a day over ten years old. She’s dressed all in grey and her black hair is pulled back in a tidy braid. Oh, yeah: also, half the skin on her face is missing and her eye is glowing red like she’s the goddamn Terminator or something.

You’re stunned silent for a moment. Wasn’t she… evil? Didn’t she work for the government? You glance at your companions, looking for answers. They seem unconcerned: Pip is beaming out a bright, polite smile and Christophe is turned away, lighting himself up another smoke.

Your voice gets caught in your throat when you try to speak. It sounds hoarse and wrecked as you stutter out: “O-okay, you… I _definitely_ saw _you_ die.”

“Yes. You did,” she affirms. “I am Leslie 2.0. But I remember you. All my sisters remember you.”

“That… doesn’t really explain anything,” you reply. _Or make me feel any better about it_.

Leslie 2.0 - a look of infinite kindness on her ruined face - takes both your hands in hers. You can feel how cold they are even through the fabric of your mittens. Her smile is sincere, but completely devoid of warmth. 

“Kyle Broflovski,” she asks very softly. “Are you sure that you really know how the world works?”

The only thing you can do is take a deep breath and shake your head ‘no’. Leslie 2.0 leads you by the hand through the ruins of a Starbucks, towards the back booth where the rest of the “Council” is waiting for her. Pip takes his place to your right and Christophe goes to lean against the counter, arms crossed and one heel braced against the display case. You cast a quick look around the table: there are five people, including Pip and Leslie 2.0. To your left is a middle eastern man in traditional afghani garb with a keffiyeh pulled up to his nose. Beside him is a non-descript Canadian who, for some reason, has a paper bag over his head. Beside _him_ is someone you recognize: a kid your age wearing no facial expression and a flamboyant, pink wig.

“Douchebag!” you gasp. Pip elbows you in the side, hard.

“That’s the Commander, you toff!” he hisses. “Have some respect!”

Leslie 2.0 slides into the booth beside the New Kid and sets one of her hands on their wrist. No one says anything, but they’re all staring at you like Cartman at the sky that one time you told him that the world record for staring at the sun was only eight minutes and the reward for beating it was ten million dollars.

You set your hands on the table and try to pose yourself with some measure of authority or dignity, but the leg is uneven and heaves heavy to one side under your palms. You stumble, cough, and adjust your hat. _Smooth_.

“S-so… as much as I’m enjoying this reunion convention of ‘assholes I saw die once’, could someone please -” you hold your hands out imploringly. “Explain to me who you are, and what the _fuck_ is going on?”

Pip sighs at you, and averts his eyes.

The Canadian man pipes up. “No problem, buddy. We’re the elders of the Resistance Council! I’m Ugly Bob, and this is Keyvan.” The middle eastern man directs a curt, respectful nod in your direction. “The rest you know, I think.”

“Yeah. But… that still doesn’t explain who you are. Why are you elders? What are you _resisting_? America? President Garrison?” Wasn’t _The Resistance_ what Liberals called themselves during the first year or so of the Garrison administration? The memory of seeing all those comedians and columnists get sentenced to lifetime prison camp terms for their twitter crimes still rattles around in your head sometimes. 

The Council members exchange long, knowing looks with each other. You can’t help but grit your teeth. They’re all obviously getting off on being as opaque as possible.

“You’re really out of touch there in America, eh?” Ugly Bob says.

You roll your eyes. “Uh huh. Americans are dumb and don’t know anything about what happens outside our borders, I get it. Don’t tell me you dragged me all the way here just to tell me to ‘google it’.”

In the shadows of the food-court, Christophe laughs.

“Well, actually,” Ugly Bob scratches his head through the paper bag. “- the problem here is that you don’t know aboot what’s going on in your own country…”

“Yes,” Keyvan agrees. His english is heavily accented, but crisp. “President Garrison has long ceased to be the threat. We stand against something far more terrifying.”

 _Jesus, enough with the dramatic tension_ , you think. You speak through your teeth. “Which is?”

“THE MACHINE,” says Keyvan, in a voice that feels like it could cut through cement.

Oh, _this_ again. “Okay, what is this… _machine_ thing everyone keeps talking about? The government agents who kidnapped me wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“No,” Pip says. “You’re saying it wrong. It’s not ‘a machine’. It’s THE MACHINE.”

“The machine,” you repeat.

“No, no, no, you have to say it like this:” Ugly Bob wiggles his fingers like he’s telling a spooky story. “THE MACHINE.”

You really can’t hear the difference. “Um… The… _Ma-chine_?”

“No,” Keyvan points to his lips as he enunciates: “THE MACHINE.”

“Everyone, stop,” says Leslie 2.0. “He’s like the Commander. THE MACHINE has no effect on him. That’s why he’s so important to them.”

“But _what_ is it?”

The New Kid, making steady and intense eye contact with you, slides a cellphone into the center of the table and taps the screen on. A 3D holographic image pops up, displaying a scattershot graph of pulsating blue lights. Leslie 2.0 raises her hands, like a conductor in the moments before the orchestra begins playing, and the image begins to rotate in time with her motions.

“Seven years ago, NSA agents working with top Microsoft developers discovered a way to convert human brain patterns into an adaptive algorithm, and vice versa.” She explains, zooming the image with a flick of her finger. “This is how the construct you know as Leslie Meyers was created. I was born in one of their Silicon Valley underground labs. But the Leslie experiment was a failure.”

“Yeah, because PC Principal put a stop to it, right?”

Leslie 2.0 shakes her head. “No, it was more elemental than that. An advertisement cannot self-perpetuate in isolation without a human component. Think about the most successful marketing campaigns of the 21st century: companies co-opting viral videos and memes. Twitter accounts run by desperate journalism students who are paid to convincingly shit-post. These campaigns are designed to make a company seem relatable and real. To trick people into thinking that they are talking to a _human being_. My sisters and I could never quite affectate the full range of human emotion and experience. That’s the power that the NSA needed.”

 _I dunno_ , you think, tugging absently at one of the ears on your hat. _You played a pretty convincing trick on me_.

“Yes,” Leslie 2.0 replies. “I am sorry about that.”

Your eyes snap open. “What the hell. I didn’t -”

“Say that aloud? Of course you didn’t. But it’s part of my algorithmic programming to seek out people with unique brainwaves like yours and synchronize with them.”

“Wait - are you saying that you can… _read my thoughts_!?”

Leslie 2.0 blinks. Her mechanical eye closes and opens a half-second slower than her human one. “Only if you are projecting them very loudly, Kyle Broflovski.”

The New Kid makes weirdly significant eye contact with you and smiles. Uhhhh…

You shake it off. “Riiight, I’m following so far. But I’m still not sure what any of this has to do with me, and the powers you all seem convinced I have.”

“Ah - That is where the military comes in,” Keyvan interjects. “They had long been kidnapping individuals with profound and unusual abilities and performing experiments on them. Children and teenagers most often. I was taken from my home country of Afghanistan when I made the mistake of petitioning an American military column about the issue of my brother having been illegally arrested and taken, I assume, to some foreign prison camp. In the process of my petition, it was discovered that I was… somewhat… _abnormal_.”

“What happened?” you ask.

Keyvan laughs, utterly without mirth. “Well… they shot me in the head. And I got back up.”

You wince as a sudden barrage of gristly, bright memories burst open behind behind your left eye. You suck in a sharp breath: _oh_ , you think, wondering how the hell you could have forgotten so many horrible thing, _just like Kenny_.

“Then… _all_ of you… have super powers?”

“Oh yeah, buddy,” Ugly Bob replies. “For example, Keyvan can’t die. I’m so astonishingly ugly that people turn to stone if they see my face. Everyone in The Resistance has superpowers. Well, except Christophe. He’s just an asshole.”

“ _Va te faire foutre_ ,” says Christophe.

“What about Pi - er, Phillip?”

“Oh! I’m a fictional character!” Pip replies, fluffing his hair. “Obviously!”

You raise an eyebrow. “Seriously. Like, from Imaginationland?”

“Yes. Haven’t you ever read Dickens?”

“Pip, it’s 2024. No one fucking reads Dickens.”

“Well!” Pip huffs. “I suppose that explains how I went undiscovered for so long. As it turns out there’s a… well, it’s best described as a _tear_ in the fabric of Imaginationland. A _hole_ , that if you fall through it leads directly to the woods outside Stark’s Pond, much like my good childhood friend Alice into Wonderland.”

“Yeah,” you grimace, “I _know_.”

Pip taps his lip. “It’s not really possible for a fictional character to be killed outside the circumstances outlined in their canon, so when I had my… _disastrous_ interaction with Ms. Streisand in fourth grade, I simply woke up in my childhood home in England as if nothing had happened. However… things were not as I remembered them. It turns out that when our dear classmate Leopold was forced to re-create Imaginationland, his subconscious thoughts infected many corners of the Kingdom. And, well, that boy has some _terribly_ dark subconscious thoughts.”

“I guess Butters _is_ probably the one of the last people I’d want dictating the parametres of my reality.”

“Indeed. Imaginationland has been in quite dire straits since then, which is why I decided to return to the real world, where I had spent much of my youth. That is when the military found me.”

You fold your hands together and touch your index fingers to your mouth, processing all of this. “So what you’re telling me… is that the NSA went to the military in order to turn the brain patterns of people like you into this… algorithm they created.”

“Thank you for following along despite your stated skepticism, Kyle.” Leslie 2.0 manipulates the holographic image again, turning it into a slideshow of government profiles on “special” individuals. Her fingers go _click-whirr_. You see a few familiar faces: Captain Hindsight, Bradley Biggle, Keyvan, Towelie… your own file flits past as well. It’s far too quick to make out the details, but you’re shocked to see that your biography is significantly longer than the others. “Most of these powers turned out to be useless for population control. But then they discovered The Commander.”

Leslie 2.0 fans her hand out and the hologram scatters, reforms and folds open like a book. Translucent blue film reels pop into focus, playing out scenes from the many adventures King Douchebag had in South Park during the curiously eventful ten months that they’d lived there. “As you know, The Commander has the ability to quickly accumulate followers on social media. They can gather tens of thousands of friends within minutes on any platform they join.”

“Yeah, I… recall someone saying something like that once.” To be honest, you had bigger concerns back then. Nazi Zombies, parental troubles, lost cats, foiling Cartman’s evil plots. The usual.

“This turned out to be exactly what the NSA needed to create their population-control algorithm. With The Commander’s brain-waves converted to data, they had Google launch their new social media platform using this predictive pattern. Of course, by the end of the year almost every single person in America had an account.”

“And this is how the government keeps track of everyone’s information now?” you venture.

“Oh, it’s much worse!” says Ugly Bob, putting a hand over where his mouth would be were it not covered in paper. “They use it to run the whole darned country, friend!”

“Uh. _How_?”

Leslie 2.0 changes the hologram again. It shows stocks, graphs, scaling numerical comparisons, numbers getting bigger. “By collating and analyzing the sentiments expressed by the American people, the algorithm is able to seamlessly produce and actualize policy decisions that - while controversial on the surface - are pleasing to the American public. Elected officials don’t have to raise a finger, nor do they have to bear the responsibility of actually making choices. Whatever happens, they can claim that they’re simply doing what the people _want_. And that is what  THE MACHINE is.”

“Hold up a second. What you’re telling me right now… is that the United States of America is being run _entirely_ by a machine that makes decisions based on the comments morons leave on social media?”

“Yes,” Ugly Bob sighs. “It is a likes-based economy in America these days I’m afraid.”

“A likes-based judiciary system,” Christophe adds. “A likes-based foreign policy system. Oh yes, do not forget: a likes-based voting system. Zhis is how your ‘President Garrison’ continues to win his elections: not because anyone votes for him, but because zhey cannot shut ze fuck up about his outlandish behavior on social media.”

You swallow hard. Look at the ceiling. It’s a mess of cracked permafrost and peeling paint. “Holy _fuck_ , dude.”

Leslie 2.0 reaches across the table to put a hand on your arm. “Are you okay, Kyle?”

“Yeah, I just… you know, I’ve been saying for years now that the reason everything’s gone to shit was because everyone _let_ it go to shit. Almost like people were _excited_ to see how bad it could get. But I didn’t think that it was literally true.”

“ _‘Many will find it hard to abandon belief zat in man there dwells an impulse towards perfection’_ ,” Christophe quotes lazily, cigarette butt hanging off his bottom lip. “ _‘But I see no way of preserving zhis pleasing illusion. Ze development of man up to now does not need any explanation differing from zat of animal development, and ze restless striving towards further perfection - observed only in a minority of humans - is a result of zat repression of ze instinct upon which human culture is built’_. Embarrassingly, it turns out zat Freud was right about at least one thing.”

“And what is that instinct?” you ask, eyes still on the ceiling.

He spits his cigarette on the floor. “Ze knowledge of ones own death, Mizter Broflovski. It’s willful _self-immolation_.”

“So you see,” Pip whispers. “- if they get ahold of you, Kyle, they will be able to program your supernatural powers of persuasion into the network. And then they will use that to snuff out the last dregs of free thought in the country.”

“Not just in America,” Keyvan adds. “But the rest of the world. All that will be left is the THE MACHINE’s will.”

“I see.” Your voice is very soft, very sturdy. Explicitly calm. Inside, you feel like you’ve got your toes lined up along a cliff again, staring down at violent water. If you could travel back in time, maybe you’d just throw yourself the fuck off this time and save yourself the trouble of having to learn all this bullshit.

“Do you finally believe us, Kyle?” Leslie 2.0 asks.

You sigh, and answer her with a helpless shrug. “I… I mean, does it really matter what I believe? It seems like the more important thing here is what _you_ believe. If you all really _do_ believe I’m a psychic, then you also believe that my brain is somehow going to cause the end of the free world. So no matter what I say, there’s no way you’re going to just let me go, right?”

“Yes, that is true,” Leslie 2.0 nods. “Usually, when Christophe brings us a new Resistance member, The Commander gives them two options.” She holds up her fingers. “Either you can join the fight, or we smuggle you to Nova Scotia so that you can catch a boat to Europe and, hopefully, escape the eye of the US Government. However,” she curls the first finger down. “- you are far too dangerous a variable, Kyle. We cannot risk you falling into the FBI’s hands. We must send you away as soon as possible.” 

“A-are you _serious_?” you sputter.

“Deadly,” Leslie 2.0 answers. “While you would be a valuable asset to The Resistance, The Commander’s decision is final.”

“I don’t want to join the Resistance!” You slam your hand on the table. It goes spinning on it’s one leg, a few rocky rotations before settling back into place. “I want to go _home_! I want to see my family and make sure they’re okay!”

Pip puts a sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry, old chap, but this is the way it must be.”

“Don’t touch me,” you hiss, throwing his hand off. “Listen, there has to be another way. We can figure something out!”

“Not unless you plan to bring down the entire US Government,” Keyvan says. “Bigger and badder people than you have tried and failed. If Putin could not do this, I will not put my faith in some scrawny American ريفي, شخص مرتبك.”

“God,” you drag your hands down your face, pulling the skin taut under your fingers. “You’re all _impossible_ to talk to!”

“You don’t have to process all of this immediately, Kyle,” Leslie 2.0 demurs in her mathematically gentle voice. “We still must travel to our main camp. You will be allowed to rest before making the journey east. We will walk, sleep and have a cup of Timmies. And then we can talk about it more in the morning.” 

Her mechanical eye flashes red over a rigid smile that says her words are inarguably _final_.

You drag behind the Council as they lead you through the Toronto metro system, quite aware that from the outside it looks like you are sulking. You’re not sulking, however.

Well, okay, sure - maybe you’re sulking a little bit: your lips pulled down as far as they will go, eyes on your feet, hands folded tight under your elbows. But more than that, you’re mentally percolating. Strategizing. Slotting information into neat, tidy compartments, into lists, into _maps_. 

You emerge from the underground in a part of Toronto far enough from the epicentre of the nuclear blast that there’s still trees standing between the city blocks. Cracked, leafless trees with malculated tumours bulging out at every joint, yeah, but trees nevertheless. The New Kid adjusts their parka, takes a look around, then sets a hand on Leslie 2.0’s head.

“We take a break here,” Leslie 2.0 says. “Ten minutes.”

You wander away from the group - not far enough to get scolded, but at a distance where you can’t hear the specifics of whatever Christophe is finally ripping into the New Kid about re: the _travel routes_ issue. The apartments and stores on this street have all been long abandoned and picked over. The sidewalk is littered with broken glass and plastic bottles. You find a bus stop, slide into the bench, set your elbows on your knees and your chin on your knuckles, and you begin to _think_.

Specifically, you’re thinking about what Keyvan said: _not unless you plan to bring down the entire US Government_. He was making fun of you, but you’re taking his recommendation under serious consideration. Cartman once fixed an entire election himself with just a fake lollipop, some crocodile tears and a little help from Butters. You can _definitely_ do better than that, right? And knowing what you know now… 

Anyone who knows what you know now, wouldn’t they have an obligation to…?

Don’t you - every single person in the entire country that is - _all_ have an obligation to...

A shadow falls over you, one that stinks of cigarette smoke and expensive brandy.

“A penny for your extremely annoying thoughts, _mon petite râleur_ ,” Christophe says, handing you a steaming paper cup. You take it, and wrinkle your nose when you smell cheap, black coffee. You take a sip anyway, and then you turn your head so that you can affix him with a serious look. He leans over the spine of the bench and stares back.

“... are you actually getting sweet on me or something?” you ask him flatly. 

He blinks at you, so you dig deeper, glad that your hat hides how red your ears are turning.

“- because now that I’ve had some time to think about it, aren’t you ten years older than me? It’s a little creepy.”

Christophe breaks eye-contact and breathes out a ribbon of smoke. “You read too deep into zhese things, _balourd_. I thought perhaps with so much on your mind it would do you some good to talk with someone who does not know shit about you. Is zat not what you information-era teens love to do? Dump your problems on strangers from ze internet?”

“No, dude, that was a millennial thing. My friends were all about trolling each other on Roblox.”

“What ze _fuck_ is Roblox?”

“See - classic millennial pop culture ignorance.”

“Hmm, well - if you are doing so fine on your own, I suppose I should leave you be.”

“Hey -” you grab his wrist, gaze averted. Still chewing your lip to pulp. “... all that stuff about The Machine. It’s true, right?”

You can hear the smoke hissing through Christophe’s teeth. “... you believe this so easily, but not in your own abilities?”

“Well, I mean…” You hunch your shoulders. “- it’s pretty easy to believe, isn’t it? That we could turn ourselves into a dystopia so easily through the feedback loop created by unmonitored comment sections? That’s what people are like - they just hype each other up into being worse and worse. It’s almost easier to believe than that it’s all the fault of a single bad election.”

“Ze natural instinct of human beings,” Christophe sighs. “It urges us towards destruction.”

You shake your head. “No, I don’t believe that humans are naturally like this. We’re better than this, Christophe.”

You watch him watch you from the periphery of your vision. There’s a whole lot things happening on his face, but like - subtly. Slowly. It looks like he might say something nice the next time he opens his mouth. His preparatory inhale, however, is interrupted by an explosive crack rocking through the city. The pavement shudders under your feet.

“Blimey!” Pip shouts from his watchpost. “It’s an FBI Drone! Actually, dash that - it’s multiple FBI Drones!”

“ _Shit_!” Christophe unhooks the rifle from his back and takes a shot. You duck under the muzzle with a yelp, spilling your coffee all over your pants. His bullet hits something above the crown of your vision and it shatters in a cloud of fire.

Your ears are ringing so loud, you can’t hear whatever orders it is Christophe is barking at you. He grabs you by the back of your coat and yanks towards the rest of the group.

“ - ould we do, Commander?” Keyvan is yelling when your hearing comes back. He’s pulled an AK-47 out from under his robes. You can hear the buzzing of the automatons, coming from all directions and getting closer.

King Douchebag stares at him blankly. Keyvan nods.

“Of course! بسرعة, everyone! This way!” Keyvan throws his arm up and gestures down a sidestreet. You all go running between the narrow walls of the alley, ice and glass crunching under your feet. The drones hover down in pairs, scanning you with their motion sensors. The red beams have the same quality of light as Leslie 2.0’s ruined eye.

You come skidding out into a parkade and dash behind the ruin of an 18-wheeler. Keyvan lays down cover fire. “Turtle formation!” he shouts. “Christophe, get the door to the underground lot open!”

“ _Oui_!” Christophe replies, and he tosses you his rifle. You’re so shocked that you nearly fumble and drop it.

“For God’s sake, keep up!” Pip calls to you, taking a shot with his own rifle. He nails one of the drones in its left propeller, sending it spiralling off course. Its companion responds with a blast of energy so hot it warps the air around it. The lazer cuts into the ground, melting a deep, dark gash into the pavement.

“Jesus fucking _christ_ ,” you leap back from where the steam is rising off the concrete. The rock is glowing orange at the seams of laceration.

“Oh yes,” Ugly Bob says, tucking Leslie 2.0 under his coat. “These drones really mean business, by the way! The Pentagon does NOT mess around.”

“Yeah, no shit!” You raise the rifle, trying to still the violent shaking in your arms. _Square your feet, shoulders loose, look your target right between the eyes_ -

You don’t brace properly for the kickback. Your shot goes flying off into empty space and you slam into the body of the truck. The New Kid - having successfully blasted the rest of the first drone out of the sky with expert precision - gives your a disappointed look and reaches out to correct your grip on the gun. Your next shot is more accurate by whole feet. The second drone drops like a stone. Unfortunately, there’s a dozen more where it came from.

“How is the door coming?” Keyvan shouts.

“It iz blocked from the inside!” Christophe replies. “We will have to find anotzher way!”

“ _Kus modar_!” Keyvan looks around frantically. “Commander, what should we do?”

The Commander’s answer is grim, unblinking silence.

“Ah, I see,” Keyvan lowers his gun. “It seems that we are, as the english say, ‘fucked in the ass’.”

Christophe rejoins the group, snatching his rifle back. He takes careful aim and downs a third drone in one bullet. “ _Il ne faut jamais désespérer, mon ami_!” he crows, grinning almost ear to ear. “You and I will make a heroic last stand, just like old times! Ugly Bob, Phillip - make sure ze Commander, Leslie and Mizter Broflovski make it out alive.”

“Wait,” you grab Christophe’s shoulder. “We can’t just leave you here!”

“It is fine,” Keyvan says. “As I cannot die.”

“But _he_ can.”

Christophe laughs, and shrugs your hand off. “Death? I spit in her face, ze fat, filthy harlot! She can do her best!”

“Y-you -” A drone shoots at your group from behind, burning a huge hole in the trailer of the truck above. You cover your head to protect it from the rain of fragmented metal and shout at the top of your lungs. “This is fucking _insa_ -”

Your voice is drowned out by another explosion. Well, not quite an explosion - a wave of noise and energy sweeps through the parkade, so intense that it’s almost like a physical force. It encases your group in a bubble of silence for three whole beats before the tension snaps and blasts outwards. The drones freeze in the air - twitching, motors suttered, their motion sensors fritzing out of control - before they begin to plummet out of the sky, shattering into exhaust and flames where they land.

“Oh, h-hamburgers! I can’t believe it actually worked!” shouts a familiar voice, almost lost above the howling of the smoke.

The next voice is even more familiar, and most _certainly_ not overwhelmed by any environmental hazard. It shears through everything, bull-in-a-china-shop style.

“Of course it fucking worked, Butters. Ken and I are experts at this shit. Have a little fucking faith in us.”

Your heart stops and your hands, instinctively, curl into fists. You raise your eyes to see three shadows standing atop the parking garage, their silhouettes illuminated by the full moon.

Christophe’s mouth is hanging open. He looks legitimately disappointed to have been robbed of his chance at self-sacrifice, because he’s a goddamn crazy-person. “Who ze fuck are they?”

“Um. My friends,” you reply numbly. The statement is one third true, but one out of three isn’t bad.

Butters waves at you. “Heya, Kyle!”

You stagger the first few steps - all jelly-legged from the adrenaline rush - but soon you’re breaking into a jog to meet Cartman, Kenny and Butters at the base of the garage. Cartman hits the ground first, whistling and twirling his pistol around one finger. You stop, and let him come the rest of the way to you. Which he does. He always does.

He twists his free hand in your coat and pulls you close. Not “overtly-homosexual” close, but definitely a few inches more intimate than is appropriate for friends who theoretically hate each other.

“Well, well, _well_ ,” he hums. “What about that, Kyle. I came to save you. Shouldn’t you be swooning into my arms right about now?”

For a moment, you fall for it. Fully and completely, like cannonballing into a cold lake. Your heart literally does this gay little leap of pride that Cartman would put himself in legitimate danger for your sake considering the last interaction you had was him screaming: _“Kyle, you two-faced, scheming, snake! You’ll pay for this! I swear to Christ you’ll all pay for this! Even you, Stan!”_ as he got shoved into the backseat of a police car. Then again, ten minutes before that he was happily fantasizing about your fictitious Catskills wedding, so who knows. Maybe this time he really means i -

You shut your eyes. Remember gasping to consciousness in some secret, high-tech government base: vision fragmented and red at the edges, ribs aching, an oxygen mask shoved over your mouth and - above you - Cartman’s tear-stained face blistering into focus. He was practically hyperventilating, that’s how genuine his panic had seemed. And all for what? To win a fucking bet.

You take a deep breath, remember the common refrain that you’ve told other people a hundred, a thousand times in your life.

_Don’t fall for it._

You smack it back down - that tiny, sincere emotion flitting through your ribcage - with the same decisive, passionless efficiency you use to murder hornets that get caught in the house. Well, Stan always calls it “murder”. Hornets don’t have higher thought processes, and neither does Eric Cartman. 

You grab his wrist and wrench it free from your coat. Then you brush past him with a patronizing sigh.

“I knew you couldn’t hack it in therapy, fatass.”

You catch the second his smug expression starts to crumble. Yeah, that’s what you _thought_.

You go greet Kenny who is - as usual - lingering at the fringe of the group. His eyes go wide when you approach him and he leaps forward to grab you by the shoulders.

“Kyle,” he rasps out, expression haunted and hollow. Wow he must have been really worried about you.

“Hey dude. What’s up?”

Kenny shakes you, frantic. “ _Kyle_ , you have to help me. You have no idea how much bubblegum pop music they forced me to listen to on the way here. It was like a big, sweaty ballsack shooting hot streams of repetitive Carly Rae Jepsen bridges down the back of my throat.”

That's it? You study his face, taking in the dark bags under his eyes, the tension tugging them wide. Remember a horrific public execution that your brother forced you to watch live. “Kenny,” you say softly. “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“Yeah, Kenny,” Cartman slaps him on the back. “We’re in Canada now, show a little respect! Carly Rae is a national hero!”

You glare at him. You're not even sure why you're so angry suddenly, but you've got a feeling under your skin like you're an over-inflated balloon, and someone's finally letting the air out. Your voice comes out about that pinched and squeaky too. “Oh, _puh_ -lease. Don’t pretend like you care about the victims of the Great Can Con Purge of 2020.”

Cartman boggles at you. “Excuse me? Why are you jumping up my ass when I’m agreeing with you? What the fuck, Kyle?”

“We were in the middle of an argument last time we saw each other, Cartman. I’m still kind of pissed off at you.”

“Oh, whatever," Cartman rolls his eyes. "You’re always pissed off about _something_. Would it kill you to say thank you?”

You turn back to Kenny. Smile. “Hey, thank you Kenny. And Butters too. I really appreciate it”

“Aw, you don’t have to thank me,” Butters replies cheerfully. “I would’a gladly left you to rot if not for Kenny an’ Eric.”

You shoot him a bewildered look. “Wha -”

Ugly Bob bumbles right into the middle of your conversation like a huge, dumb golden retriever. “Hey buddy, what’s going on over here. I thought I heard someone talk about St. Carly Rae.”

“No!” Kenny squeaks. “No one was talking about any pop princesses!”

You turn to greet Ugly Bob and the rest of the Council. “These are my friends. Kenny, Butters and… Cartman.”

Keyvan raises a hand in greeting. “ _Salaam_ , Kenneth.”

Kenny waves back. “Hey, Keyvan. Long time no see.”

You glance between them, confused. “You two know each other?”

“Kenny McCormick is known to us,” Leslie 2.0 says, stepping out from under Ugly Bob’s coat. “He has received invitation to join The Resistance many times. Have you finally changed your mind?”

“Nah,” Kenny jerks a thumb in your direction. “I just came to collect my pal here.”

Leslie 2.0 tips her head to one side. The metal joints in her neck clink audibly. “I see. Unfortunately, you must know that is impossible.”

Kenny tips his head right back. Leslie 2.0 frowns.

“We have spoken about this. Kyle Broflovski is too dangerous an asset to allow to fall into government hands. The only option we have now that they’re tracking him is to ferry him east.”

You breathe in hard through your nose. “Can you maybe not talk about me like I’m not here?” you ask in what you hope is a civil tone of voice. They both ignore you.

“Leslie, I’ve known this dude my whole life. You gotta have a little more faith in him. Have a little more faith in _me_.”

“Faith is a two way street, Kenny McCormick. You cannot ask me to put faith in you when you have repeatedly shunned cooperation with our organization. I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish here.”

“Listen,” Kenny shoves his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t have come all this way if we were just going to run. I came here to take my friend back home. I don’t care what I have to do, or who has to die, but we’re _all_ going back to South Park when we’re done here. That’s a promise.”

You tuck your head against your shoulder to hide how big you’re grinning. For the first time in… in months, God - maybe _years_ \- you feel an irrepressible swell of optimism blossoming at the pit of your stomach. Your heart lifts again. Kenny is really damn cool sometimes.

Leslie 2.0 sighs. It sounds like wind raking over aluminum. “But _how_ , Mister McCormick?”

Kenny doesn’t reply immediately. He fishes around in his coat for his bag of tobacco and a pack of papers and makes everyone wait as he slowly rolls himself a cigarette one handed. He lights it with a match. It takes a few strikes to flare up, and the flame is a bold shock of color against the silver moonlight. Kenny pulls his scarf down and purses his lips around the cigarette, obviously lost in deep thought.

Finally, eyes trained on the sky, he says: “You know what? I have no fucking idea yet.”

Your heart falls right back down, flat on it’s fucking face. “Oh,” you sigh. “Good.”

Somewhere behind you, Cartman starts laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason this chapter was excruciating to write, but now that we’re over the expository roadblock expect much swifter updates. <3
> 
> find me @ [dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com](https://dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com/)


	7. The Inclination to be the Kind Of Guy Who Laughs at a Funeral is the Instinctual Disposition of Man

_Four years ago you were crunching through the path behind South Park elementary, subtly adjusting the cuff of your dress-shirt where it poked out from under your suit jacket to hide that it was smudged with soot. The music from the gym was pouring out into the night, settling beneath the chilly silence like sediment at the bottom of a lake. Heidi was sitting on a log, silhouette made into a shadow by the moonlight reflecting off the surface of Stark’s Pond. Her hair pulled over one shoulder, her chin raised, her hands folded in her lap. She looked contemplative and delicate, and you were playing out a horrible conversation that you’d just had with Stan over and over again in your head._

_‘Dude,’ he said. ‘It’s like you’re… bored now that you don’t have anything to rescue her from.’_

_‘Excuse me, what?’ is how you responded. Stan just gave you a flat-mouthed look: unblinking dead silence. That’s the way he always looks at you when he knows you’re clicking through several degrees of cognitive dissonance. Lecturing someone - that’s your thing. Stan just sighs._

_And your first instinct was the deflect because, well: Stan’s relationship with Wendy was (is) fighting a losing battle, over and over again, to the point of genuinely insane futility in your opinion, but still - he did_ fight _to get her back in time to graduate elementary school together. And you - well, you spent the last 48 hours with Butters, stalking Cartman and his family. And your girlfriend, unlike Wendy, actually wanted to go to sixth grade prom with you. It’s not your fault - or hers - that the Greyhound line from Seattle to Colorado Springs was six hours late._

_But you realized to do that - excuses, reversals - it made you sound like a total douche. It made you sound like -_

_“It was nice of you to actually show up,” Heidi said when she heard your footsteps stop behind her. There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Maybe an edge of defeat. She really was glad; that’s just how Heidi is. She’s so nice. She doesn’t even need a reason to be nice._

_“I’m sorry for standing you up,” you said._

_“I know you are,” she replied, but did not turn to look at you. You ran a hand through your hair, which was getting overlong. It was around this time that you stopped shearing it short again. Shaving your head had begun to feel like a temporary rebellion: pointless in a world that never learns or changes. “Are you going to try to explain yourself?”_

_“No. I did that to Stan and he said I sounded like an asshole.”_

_“You’re not an asshole, Kyle.”_

_You stepped over the log so that you could sit beside her. Put your hands on your knees, stared hard at the grass where all the dandelions were trampled from other pre-teen couples coming out for a kiss-and-tell. “I am, though,” you sighed. “Sort of.”_

_“I don’t think so. I actually think you’re very kind. It’s just…”_

_“Just ?”_

_Heidi - eyes still trained on the sky - smiled that sweet, sad smile of hers. “Other people’s lives aren’t always your business, Kyle.”_

_Yeah. Okay. Sure. But -_

_“Do you really think that I should sit by and do nothing?”_

_“Not all of the time, no. But most of the time… yes, Kyle, I do think that.”_

_Right here you could have said something smart. Even better, something sensitive, and maybe the two of you could have had a much more amicable break-up. Instead, this came out of your mouth:_

_“You know, Heidi. Me sticking my nose into other people’s live is how we ended getting close in the first place. Do you regret that?”_

_She turned her head to look at you. Slowly. You gulped when her eyes locked with yours, because you knew immediately that you’d just said pretty much the stupidest shit a guy can ever say to a girl in this specific scenario._

_“Is that what you think?” she said._

_“I -”_

_“Is that seriously the narrative of our relationship in your head?”_

_You dug your fingers into your knees and said nothing. After a moment, Heidi asked:_

_“... so. Did it turn out that he was up to something after all?”_

_“No. False alarm,” you murmured._

_She said: “Kyle… I worry about him too. You’re not the only one who does.”_

_\- and your head snapped up to gape at her. “Worry? Heidi - it’s not worry.”_

_“Then what is it?” The pitch of her voice changed, flitted up into a higher register. “You’re the one who told me that he’s never going to change. If you really believed that, then why do you even bother?”_

_“If I don’t keep an eye on him, who will?”_

_“Right. Because you have some super special secret insight to his psychology?”_

_“Well… yes?_

_“I don’t think the insight is that unique. I know Eric too, Kyle. If I tell you that I don’t think he’s up to something, you could do me the courtesy of at least taking my words into consideration.”_

_“It’s different, Heidi.”_

_“How is it different?”_

_“Because, you never saw anything g -”_

_You cut yourself short, because what you were about to say sounded extremely fucking weird, even in your head. It still sounds weird, years later._

_“Finish your sentence, Kyle,” Heidi whispered._

_“- genuine.” Your voice cracked on the word, because it sounded a thousand times weirder coming out of your mouth. “You never saw anything_ genuine _.”_

 _And she looked at you sideways, like a person does when they’re seeing something dark move beneath the surface of the water. Like the way you look at Cartman when you think you’re seeing something_ real. _The looked lasted about thirty seconds, and then she gathered up her skirt, got to her feet and kissed you gently on the forehead._

_“Goodbye, Kyle. I’ve already deleted you off iChat, Discord and Twitter, so don’t bother trying to speechify another apology to me. I’ve already heard what I needed to hear.”_

_When she was gone, you looked out over the lake. The path strewn with pine needles, the ripples made by the gentle waves. You heard the cheesy song the Prom Committee voted for ‘last dance’ blasting out over loudspeaker. You don’t remember what it was; it’s all white noise in your memory. The light leaking out from the gym was pale blue._

_Out loud, you said: “... uh, what the fuck?”_

The dawn cracks over Toronto in neon pink bands. You trudge through the slush, one ear on the conversations around you and the other on the distant howl of the wind to make sure that it is just the wind. The last three days have made you kind of paranoid.

Kenny is explaining his homebrew EMP bomb recipe to a rapt Keyvan and Christophe. Butters is talking the New Kid’s ear off, filling them in on every stupid thing that’s happened in South Park in the six and a half years since they left. Cartman is providing some very unnecessary discursive commentary to both these exchanges.

Leslie 2.0 stops the group for another coffee break. Or to give Pip a chance to scout ahead. Whatever, you weren’t really paying attention. You hang back, tucking yourself under the eave of the strip mall you’re passing through. The display window is frigid against your shoulders even through three layers. You toss your head back to rest it against the glass and take a deep breath. The best Kenny could tell you about your family was: _‘I’m pretty sure they’re fine’_ , which is not nearly enough to quiet your nerves. You need someone to have actually seen them. _You_ need to see them. You’re glad that the government stripped you of your cell-phone way back in D.C. because you’re not sure you’d have the willpower to stop yourself from attempting to facetime Ike and probably getting all of them fucking killed.

You can hear extremely familiar breathing approaching, heavy steps in the snow. _Great_ , you think, here comes Cartman to add some unnecessary discursive commentary to your internal monologue. You open your eyes and glower at him. He stops (carefully, and just at the periphery of your arms-reach you notice), and for once in his life says absolutely nothing. 

“What?” you ask.

“What???” he counters back.

“I asked you ‘what’ first.”

Cartman does one of his characteristic sassy hand gestures - swings a hip out as he rolls his wrist to point at you. “You’re bitching so loud inside your head that I’m surprised it’s not shaking the foundations of the goddamn city. Watching you sulk like this is driving me fucking nuts.”

“I think after everything that’s happened to me in the last seventy-two hours, I’ve earned the right to sulk.”

“Pfft. Stop worrying so much, Anxious Annie. Ike’s too smart to get killed, and your mom’s too bitchy to die. Her corpse would probably rise from the grave powered by pure menopausal rage alone. And if your dad dies, well -” he shrugs. “I mean, doesn’t that solve a few of your problems?”

You stare at him. “Cartman, are you trying to make me feel better?”

“No.” He leans forward and makes a twisting motion with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m trying to unwedge that tampon from your asscrack before you die of toxic shock syndrome.”

“Tampons don’t go in the ass, retard,” you respond automatically, without putting a single second of rational thought into where this is obviously going. Cartman grins brighter than the sun rising above you.

“So, you finally admit that you have a vagina.”

You resist pointing out that he’s been down there enough times to know that isn’t true. Saying it out loud feels like trying to summon Biggie Smalls in the mirror on Halloween. There’s only so many times you can speak the words before you conjure a monstrous thing into reality.

Beside, something else has just occurred to you.

You take a step forward so that you can grab the tail of Cartman’s scarf. You wrap it around your knuckles and give it a tug. Just enough to reel him in. He chooses to close the remaining inches between you himself, looking a little breathless. This is not the response he expected, or the one he was fishing for. 

“Cartman,” you say seriously.

“K-Kahl…” he responds, licking his lips.

You pull the scarf taut, so that he’s eye-level. “Did you tell Butters about us?”

He blinks. “What?”

You wind the scarf tighter, watch the fabric around his neck slide, layer on layer, and strain against his skin. Listen to the hitch in his breathing when it pulls tight over his jugular. “Did. You. Tell. Butters. About. _Us_?”

It takes a second for him to register what you’re talking about. “What does it matter?” he huffs out. “It’s fucking _Butters_. However -”

“Augh!” You give the scarf a vicious yank and then shove him away with both hands. “GOD! I can’t believe I actually thought you’d _respect_ my privacy!”

He stumbles back, coughing. “Kyle, wait -”

“What the hell was I thinking? You NEVER change, and _I_ never _learn_!”

“Kyle, damnit, would you just fucking list -”

You turn away because the last thing you want to do is watch him stutter through a litany of terrible excuses. “How many people know?” you demand, pressing your eyes shut. “ _What_ do they know?”

“Kyle!” He grabs you by the elbow and whirls you back around. Your heel skids on the ice so you don’t have the leverage to tear away. “Untwist your panties for a minute and hear me out! Butters already knew!”

“He what?” Your mouth rolls into a flat line.

“He figured it out himself!”

“ _How_?” you ask. 

Cartman breaks eye contact and rubs a hand over the side of his neck. He looks a little… embarrassed? “... the same way Stan and Kenny did. C’mon, Kyle. Our relationship has never exactly been _subtle_.”

You think about that for a moment, breath caught in your throat and a flush rising in your face. Your hickeys, his bruises - matching sets. _Like wedding bands, ha ha_ , your stupid brain supplies. What a great, authentically generated idea. Nothing weird about that. Cartman’s little stunt back in your bedroom all those hours and hours ago has gotten under your skin worse than you thought, like a CIA psyop implanting subtle, intrusive thought-bombs directly into your subconscious. You feel off-kilter, translucent; you’ve always known that the rug was going to pull out from under the feet of Cartman’s “good behavior”. Every time it doesn’t, it gets more and more disorientating.

You pull free and run your hands down your face. “Oh my God. How obvious are we?” Cartman doesn’t answer, so you peek at him from over the tips of your fingers. He’s got a contemplative look going, eyes a bit glassy. He’s staring at you the way he often does when he thinks he’s not going to get caught. “... you really haven’t told anyone?” you ask quietly.

He frowns. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

“Huh. You know, it’s been bugging me actually. _Why_ haven’t you told anyone?”

He snorts. “Because I knew you’d react like this, obviously.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Kyle, you’re fucking predictable as shit.”

“That’s not what I meant. Since when have you cared about not pissing me off?”

Cartman reaches out and pokes you in the cheek. “As much as I _looove_ making you froth yourself up into a tizzy over nothing,” he purrs, using his finger to smoosh your cheek in and out. “- it’s not the only thing I think about, believe it or not.”

You bat his hand away. “Look, you can’t blame me for being suspicious. This has been going on long enough that I have to wonder what your endgame is here.”

“I already told you what my endgame was, Kyle.”

You can’t help it - you laugh in his face. “You don’t expect me to believe you were serious about that.”

“Oh, Kyle,” he chuckles and looms over you, expression glacial and extremely severe. He whispers: “I have never been more serious about anything in my life.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, but his gaze doesn’t break. He doesn’t even blink.

You two get caught like that for God knows how long, until you hear Kenny’s boots crunching their way through the ice. 

“Hey,” Kenny says, hands in his pocket, glancing between the two of you like he just caught his parents fighting. Well, not literally _his_ parents. Like he caught your parents fighting, maybe. Cartman has never put a fist-fight half as good as either of the McCormicks when they’ve gotten halfway into a 12-pack of Pabst Blue.

It suddenly hits you that Kenny is staring with the full-knowledge that you and Cartman have fooled around. Even worse, he’s been looking at you like that the whole time and you didn’t even realize it. You sweep back, putting some nice, non-sexual space between the two of you, and hold up your hands. 

“Okay,” you begin, hype-aware that your tone of voice is hovering somewhere between ‘neurotic warbling’ and ‘self-righteous lecturer’. “So let’s get this out of the way... I know that it’s all out in the open now, but _please_ don’t be weird about this, Kenny.”

“I’m not being weird.” Kenny shrugs. He kicks a rock across the parkade, then says: “Well, not as weird as Cartman probably felt when he finally fulfilled his childhood dream of getting his cock in your ass and you asked ‘is it in yet’?”

You feel your whole body turn red up like a thermometer hitting 150°. “Kenny! Jesus _christ_! W-we haven’t -”

Cartman interrupts. “Eh, you poor piece of shit! I’ve told you a thousand times that I don’t have a microdick!”

Kenny whistles and rocks back on his heels. “Too bad no one here can corroborate your statement, huh?”

You pointedly say nothing. For all Cartman was teasing you for about getting “frothed up” over nothing, he’s always been more combustible than a canister of compressed air held over an open flame over the _stupidest_ shit. 

He throws his arms up in the air. “Oh, look at Mata Hari over here! Kahl, what the fuck!?”

“What? You expect me to defend your honor when you wouldn’t even defend my bid for Student Council Vice President last semester?”

He rolls his eyes so hard his whole head goes with it. “Pfft. Are you still assburnt about that? I was doing you a favor - everyone knows you’re a natural born Treasurer.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

Cartman sucks in a harsh breath. You can hear his teeth grind together as he clenches his jaw shut. He’s in physical pain restraining himself from making a Jew joke. Baiting him with opportunities to unleash the good ol’ anti semitism has been one of your few sources of joy during a dark and troubled year. You have to bury your face in Christophe’s scarf so he doesn’t see you snickering at him.

“Because,” he grits out. “You’re so very good at mathematics and money management, Kyle. Two completely neutral skills, which you posses among many others. I respect that you cultivated these skills organically, because we all know, of course, that specific types of mental aptitude is _definitely_ not an genetic trait.”

“You were doing well until the last part, fat ass.”

Kenny puts a hand over his mouth and giggles. “This is nice. It’s been a while since we’ve all been able to laugh together like this.”

You’re giggling a bit too, all high and breathy. You can finally feel some of the tension easing off your shoulders, slowly unwinding a knot that’s been tightening for what feels like most of your life. But there’s something off about Kenny’s statement. Someone missing for this to be anything like “old times”.

You catch you breath and toss a curious look Kenny’s way. “Uh - so why didn’t you guys bring Stan?”

Kenny and Cartman exchange a long, knowing look. And then they look at you, like you should automatically understand what the fuck their little eye-gossip session meant.

“What?” you say.

Cartman breaks first.

“... I don't get it.”

“Kyle -” Kenny’s laughing so hard he’s tearing up. He wipes at his eyes, then sets a hand on your shoulder. _Kyle_ \- look, I love Stan too, but really: do you think he’d have been of any use in this situation?”

“Yeah,” Cartman crows. “What’s Stan gonna do if we came across an FBI drone, huh? Be _depressed_ at it.”

You shake your head. “Dude, come on.”

“I _am_ ‘coming on’, Kyle. If we’d brought Stan, he would have fucking died.”

“Besides,” Kenny adds. “It’d look pretty suspicious if your best friend took off in the middle of the night right after you disappeared. Just think of it like he’s… playing interference back home.”

Deep down, you know they’re right. More than any of you, Stan has worked hard to pull away from all the crazy shit your town throws at you. Excusing an accidental demon summoning or two and a weird stint as a Mormon missionary in Guam, Stan’s concerns the last few years have been purely personal: romantic troubles, family troubles, therapy avoidance...

 _Still_. “I dunno guys, maybe Stan would have come equipped with something like a plan to get us out of here.”

“Hey, hey,” Kenny plays at being offended, but doesn’t put much effort into it. “It’s not like I didn’t think this through at all. Do you think I brought fatboy here along for shits and giggles?”

“Fuck you too, Kenny.”

“Don’t worry, Kyle. It’ll come together.”

You wish you could share his lackadaisical attitude. Not just right row, but in general. You rub the back of your head, where the bruise Beverly Tremblay-Levesque gave you is starting to turn into a real shiner. “What the hell is even going on, Kenny?”

Kenny takes a moment to reply. He runs a finger around the edge of one of the holes in his coat, and sighs. “Kyle,” he says finally. “Are you sure that you really know how the world works?”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s... exactly what Leslie said to me.”

“Well?”

You swallow hard. Twist your hands together. “All the stuff about The Machine… about people with superpowers, and the American government and… you d-dying all the time? I mean - yeah, a lot of this is observably true. But the rest of it... I don’t know what to make of it. I’m just… confused.”

“I know that being skeptical is the way you are,” Kenny says gently. “But you have to understand that there’s a whole other world sleeping just beneath ours, Kyle. And you’re a part of it whether or not you want to be.”

You open your mouth to respond, but you’re interrupted by a horrible noise. _Cruuuunch_. You whip your head around to see that Cartman’s produced a bag of Cheetos from thin air and is in the process of loudly chowing down.

“Do you fucking mind?”

“What?” he asks, mouth full of chips. “Kenny already filled me and Butters in on this shit in the car. Besides, _you’re_ the one who’s always like _‘oh no, Kenny died! This has never, eeeever happened before! I’m sooooo traumatized’_! I’ve been telling you guys for years, but you never fuckin’ listen.”

“Wait. You _knew_ about that?”

“Uh, yeah? We’ve only seen it happen a thousand fucking times.”

You don’t even know what to say about that. Luckily, you don’t have to think of anything to say about it, because Christophe shouts at you across the lot.

“Come on you filthy _andouilles_. We don’t have ze time to sit around babysitting all day while you play patty-cake wiz your thumbz jammed the entire way up your asses!”

“Oh, fuck off Christophe!” you shout back. “We’ll be along in a minute!”

You’re suppressing a grin. Kenny notices, and gives you a really, weird look that wipes the smile right off your face. Oh shit, you think; Kenny, in addition to being apparently supernaturally unkillable, is also preternaturally perceptive. How pale you go earns you _another_ super weird look. _Not technically cheating_ \- it rattles around inside your head again. Logically, literally and morally there’s no reason for you to feel bad. But you do.

Cartman pops another Cheeto into his mouth and snorts: “what an asshole.”

It takes two hours to reach the Resistance’s main camp, most of that spent stealing through subway tunnels and demolished convenience stores. The sun is struggling to crack through the clouds, casting pale light over the rise of what was once a humongous mall. The entrance is a tangled maze of gnarled, twisted metal, flaking sloughed skins of rust off in the breeze. It’s quiet inside: a mausoleum to the kind of personal luxury the people of Canada can no longer afford, bathed in pale light.

There’s movement behind one of the storefront windows. Christophe raises his rifle.

“Woah, wait - wait! Chrissy, pal, it’s just me!”

A smartly-dressed man peels out from behind the curtain, brushing dust off his tan, Burberry trench-coat.

Christophe groans, and lowers his gun. “ _Qu'est ce que fuck_ , Chad, I have told you again and again not to call me ‘Chrizzy’.”

“Chad, buddy!” Ugly Bob jaunts forward and gives the man a friendly punch on the shoulder and then gathers him up under one arm. “Oh, you’ll _love_ this guy, he’s great!”

“Ha ha,” Chad smiles blandly. “That’s me, the most likeable American in Canada! So, is this the ‘special package’ the Commander was waiting for?” 

You sigh so hard it vibrates your ribcage. That’s you: the Object Of Importance To The American Government.

“Yes,” Leslie 2.0 answers. “But we have more important matters to attend to. We encountered drones on the way here, which means that the FBI has most certainly already set up a forward operating base somewhere in the city.”

“Oh shit,” Chad’s eyes go wide. “You don’t say?”

“I just said it,” Leslie 2.0 says.

Chad grimaces, and shrugs off Bob’s friendly hug. “Well, Eve’s doing her watch shift up by where The Hudson Bay’s Company used to be if you need a scouting partner there, Pip.”

“Ahoy hoy,” Pip salutes, and disappears into the shadows of the escalator.

“As for the newbies...” Chad shoots you a magazine-cover grin. You swear that his teeth literally glitter in the half-light. You find the expression skin-crawlingly revolting for some reason you can’t put your finger on. “Why don’t you follow me and I’ll get you settled in? Let’s give the Council a lil’ time to talk amongst themselves, huh?”

“Wow,” Butters quails “What a nice man.”

Christophe mutters under his breath, then starts digging for something in his backpack. You hitch up on your tiptoes so that you can see over his shoulder. He pulls out a plastic bag full of Whatchamacallits.

“For _les enfants_ ,” he grumbles, handing it over to Chad. Chad takes the bag with a nod, then waves for you and your friends to follow him.

“The Resistance has been been in this location for a couple months now,” he explains blithely, leading you down a series of long, narrow escalators. “Previously, we were camped out in _Twaaa_ -Rivers, but America’s really been tightening the borders around Quebec since that’s where the majority of Canadian based terrorism comes from. Toronto’s been the ideal front since there’s still pockets of refugees hanging out all over. Did you know that this used to be the fourth largest mall in Canada?”

You rub your eyes. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’re all kind of tired, dude. Can this expository dump wait until we’ve had a nap?”

Cartman elbows you in the side. “ _Kahl_ , don’t be rude.”

You elbow him back. “What the hell? Keep your arms to yourself fat ass. I’m not being rude.”

“Eric’s right, Kyle!” Butters pipes up. “It’s very important that we let Chad speak.”

You boggle at your friends, then look to Kenny for support.

Good, kind, _supportive_ Kenny leans over and whispers directly into your ear: “C’mon, Kyle. Look at how fuckable he is.”

You look Chad over, frowning. Dirty-blonde hair, swept to one side, frosted at the tips. Pressed pants, expensive shoes. Somehow he has a tasteful tan in the dead of fucking winter.

You don’t see it. But you sigh, and let him prattle on. You don’t listen, though. Instead you cock your head to an angle so that you can see beneath the overhang. There’s a murmur rising from below, a din of muddled voices - conversation, laughter, the sound of feet clattering against cold tile. The camp is built from utility tents and canvas sheets hung between the rows and rows of plastic food-court tables, lit by the gentle glow of kerosene mosquito lamps.

A gaggle of children bolt out from beneath one of the makeshift tents and come to meet Chad at the base of the escalator. The head child - about nine years old, with dark, scattered freckles and ugly burn scar beneath their left eye - skids to a stop when he takes in the whole group. His eyes go wide and he calls over his shoulder to his cohorts: “Boyos! Kenny’s back!

“Kenny!” A red-head girl throws herself at Kenny and attaches herself to his knees like she’s got suction cups on the undersides of her arms.

Cartman scowls. “ _This_ is where you went for that semester in ninth grade?” he asks, disbelieving. “To help out some fucking _Canadians_?”

Kenny shrugs, and ruffles the girl’s hair.

The sight of Canadian children with their adorable beady eyes and their multi-colored parkas does nothing to soothe your guilt, or improve your mood. These kids aren’t much younger than Ike, and this is the kind of life they’re living? Filthy, dressed in ill-fitting clothes, sporting wounds that are going to last forever. If they knew who you were, you wouldn’t blame them for jumping you where you stand and eviscerating your corpse like a pack of wild wolves.

“Chad,” the head child tugs at Chad’s coat. “Surely this means that The Mole has been to America. What’s he brought us this time? White Castle? Baja Blast Mountain Dew? A carton of corn syrup?”

“Oh - even better than that, kids!” Chad hands the boy the bag of Whatchamacallits. Your heart strains painfully at the expression of pure, unadulterated joy brought to his face by the sight of what is, at best, a C-rate candy bar. You hock back a cough to stop your eyes from watering. Oh boy are your forty-eight hours of no-sleep starting to catch up with you. You can feel yourself getting emotionally raw and irrational. Your skin is prickling all up along the sides of your torso and your hands are shaking down to the base of your wrists.

Your catch Kenny watching you from beneath the hem of his good. He holds eye contact for a moment, then pokes Chad in the shoulder.

“Hey, sexy, why don’t you show my friend here to the barracks. He’s had a pretty long trip.”

Chad’s eyebrows jump. “Wh-what did you call me?”

Kenny peels his female admirer off with a gentle hand, then grabs Cartman by the elbow. “Don’t worry about it. Hey kids, let’s go check out the forward defenses.”

“Yay!” shout the kids.

“Ugggggh,” groans Cartman as he’s dragged away. Butters takes one last starry-eyed look at Chad, then ambles after them. Chad looks like he’s trying to solve the Hodge Conjecture. 

“Huh,” he says aloud, then: “Well, come on then.”

The “barracks” turn out to be a dilapidated subway train jammed into the wreck of the mall’s underground station. “This is where the Council and our Resistance field agents sleep,” he says. “That way we can steal away into the tunnels if the Americans show up. We don’t want to endanger the survivor camp, y’know?”

Upon further reflection, Chad seems perfectly nice, so you’re beginning to feel a little bad about how everything that comes out of his mouth makes you want to peel the skin off your face. Your brain is starting to hurt: a tension headache that begins at the center of your skull and blossoms outwards like a drop of food-coloring into a bowl of water.

Chad leans in and whispers. “You’re feeling it, huh?”

Your vision is stars at the circumference. “Feeling what?”

“What happens when two Cerebrokinetics comes into contact with each other.” Chad turns away, a flush rising on his perfectly-formed cheekbones. “I’m actually… kind of glad I got a moment alone with you. Did you know that Cerebrokinetics are the rarest kind of psychic? Only one out of every ten thousand psychics can influence people the way we can. I’ve never met another one, and I spent five years in a psychic detention center.”

Oh _God_. 

“... you’re a psychic, then?” you ask, with an intonation so flat you’re practically invoking the doppler effect. Chad does not pick up on the skepticism in your tone and grins at you like a big, dumb puppy.

“Yeah! Not as strong as you, of course. They ranked me as a 7.5, which is still well above average. But I’ve heard that you’re a level 10! You must be one of the most powerful psychics in the entire world, Kyle. Can I call you Kyle?”

“No.”

“Okay. Mister Broflovski, then! Anyway, no wonder there’s been so many precautions bringing you in. Man, I’d bet the President would be willing to nuke Toronto all over again if it meant getting you back in government custody.”

“Mmm _hmm_ ,” you hum, avoiding eye contact. You sincerely cannot think of a conversation you’d rather be having less at this exact moment. What you’d give to be back with Cartman, talking about your _relationship_. “And what’s your superpower?”

“White Privilege!” he answers cheerfully.

Okay. _that_ makes you look at him. “White... Privilege?”

“Oh boy, yeah. I’m just brimming with that ol’ Whitey advantage. It’s both a blessing and a curse.”

“Uh, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but White Privilege is a sociological concept, not a superpower dude.”

“Maybe for most people, but for me it’s a form of psychic influence. Before I realized what I was, I was just coasting by in life like an asshole because everyone gave me whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. Once I robbed a bank just by walking in the door and explaining to the teller that I was looking to open my own microbrewery. It works on everyone! Er, well -” he scratches his ear. “It doesn’t work on blacks. Or asians. Or _especially_ not native americans. Or anyone who’s not white, really. And I guess not on other Cerebrokinetics, because you’re the first white person I’ve ever met who doesn’t automatically wanna suck my dick, ha ha.”

“I’m Jewish,” you reply.

He laughs again. “Yeah, like I said: you’re white.”

You ground your palm into your forehead. “Can you… just let me sleep already? I’ve been through a lot today.”

“Oh! Oh wow!” He practically leaps a foot in the air trying to give you space. “Shit, man, I’m sorry. You must be dead on your feet! I’ll leave you alone.”

Mercifully, he does. You stumble into the nearest train car, careful to mind the gap. The floor is tilted so you have to grope your way along the handrail in order to lay yourself down on the seats. You’re so exhausted that your mind is completely blank. Sleep feels like such a distant memory that you’re not sure you’re even capable of it anymore. You can feel the weight of everything you’ve seen and done and said and had said to your start to bear down on you like the crest of an avalanche just before someone throws a stone. But, the moment your head hits the plastic cushion, you -

\- wake up to the sound of Butters calling your name.

Butters? Wait. Why the fuck is Butters here? You try to open your eyes but they’re crusted shut with that disgusting gunk that gathers in the tear-ducts when you’ve slept too hard and too long. Did you sleep too long? You’re achy, and fucking freezing. Sometimes when Cartman steals into your room in the middle of the night he forgets to close the window on the way out. Just two weeks ago you slept through your alarm to discover a two foot drift of snow gathered beneath your window. And you had to take the full brunt of your mom freaking out because you couldn’t explain what happened. You sat there - hands in your lap, eyes on the floor and your thighs burning from the sting of bite-marks turning into bruises.

Your eyes snap open. You see: stained plastic. Advertisements for artisanal maple syrup. Cracked plexiglass windows.

“Golly. Well good mornin’ there, sunshine,” Butters says, and he sounds like he’s being _sarcastic_.

You swing into a sitting position, rubbing the mucus out of your eyes. “ _Is_ it morning?” you ask goggily.

“N-naw. It’s actually six in the evenin’. Ain’t you ever heard of a ‘turn of phrase’, Kyle?”

You sigh, and choose not to dignify that. “What’s going on?”

“The Council is havin’ an awful intense conversation about what’s to be done with you. Kenny and Eric thought you might wanna be present for it.”

You jump to your feet, abruptly and acutely lucid. “What the fuck? Those assholes are seriously trying to decide my fate without my input!?”

Butters nods.

“Where are they!?”

“There’s a drugstore just offa the camp. They’re usin’ the office in the back.”

You stride towards the train door, but Butters takes a step off the platform and gets in your way. You try to step to the other side. He mirrors your movement to block your path. 

“... what’s your problem, Butters?”

He crosses his arms. “Don’t you think you’ve got somethin’ to say to me?”

“When do I ever have something to say to you, Butters?”

“How about you say ‘I’m sorry, Butters, fer nearly _killin’_ you back at the hospital’! I reckon that’d be a good start!”

“For nearly what?”

He pokes you in the ribs. “With your psychic powers! Why, you blast me right into the wall with telekinesis an’ I nearly died! You don’t remember? It was barely half a week ago!”

You groan. “Butters, not you too. I did not release a _“blast”_ of _“telekinesis”_ in the hospital.”

“What do you think happened then, huh? Th-that I just… tripped over my own feet an’ nearly cracked my skull open?”

You snicker. “Sure. That’s not entirely out of character.”

“Oh, g-go… go diddle yourself in the peehole, Kyle. You’re such an asshole an’ you don’t even know it.”

“Why are you even here, Butters? Did Kenny and Cartman really need a bomb-supplies caddy that badly?”

“No. They needed me ‘cause I got a map -” he points at where his head is bandaged. “Of what you’ve been doin’ this whole time in my head. An echo of your psychic powers stuck in my brain. That’s how we found you, since the Resistance is always on th’ move.”

You can feel the blood drain from your face, even though what Butters said is totally fake and impossible. You remember Leslie 2.0 reading your thoughts back in the abandoned Starbucks. “N-no way.”

“That’s right,” Butters gloats, tone snide and triumphant. “I’ve seen some of what you’ve been up to these last few days, so you better watch your steps, Kyle. You ain’t exactly been behaving yourself, have you?”

“You’re bluffing."

He smiles. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Maybe you should’a been nicer, Kyle, an’ I’d be on your side here.” He folds out of the way and holds his arms out like a cartoon prince guiding a princess out of a carriage. “Well... you’d better hurry up.”

You don’t waste another second on him. You’re stomping through the camp with a laser-focused intensity, whipping past the tents and tables with an aura of fury tangible enough that it’s earning you weird looks from strangers. You couldn’t care less. You throw the door to the pharmacy office open so hard that it swings wide and puts a crack in the drywall. Everyone in the room stops what they’re doing and turn to stare at you. And it looks like they were in the middle of a debate, all right: five of the Council members clustered around one end of the conference table, and Kenny and Cartman at the other.

Christophe breaks the silence. He takes a languid drag off his cigarette and says: “Ah - finally, Sleeping Beauty rises from ze grave. And wizout anyone performing a romantic action of dubious consent to accomplish zhis task.”

“Why didn't you wake me up?” you demand.

Leslie 2.0 folds her hands on the table. Beneath her is a map of the city dotted with red tape and and post-it-notes. “We already had this conversation, Kyle. You cannot stay in Canada. But the presence of the FBI has complicated things, as the Resistance must also relocate.”

“We can’t go east again,” Ugly Bob explains. “But _you_ have to go east. So you see our problem.”

“I don’t see a problem at all considering I already said that I don’t want to go east!”

“I told you guys he’d throw a hurricane level hissy fit about this if no one went to get him,” Cartman says.

Christophe looks at Cartman like he’s a piece of dogshit on the underside of his boot. Actually, Christophe would probably hold the literal shit in much higher regard. “... I must ask onze again - what ze fuck is he even doing in here?”

Kenny raises his palms in apology. “ _You_ try to keep him out.”

You stalk across the room and slam both hands on the table. “I think anyone would throw a fucking “hissy fit” in my situation. What - were you going to throw me in a sack and drag me away in my sleep?”

“I admit zat ze idea _did_ occur to me,” Christophe chuckles. “It seems to be ze only way to make you cooperate.”

“Well I’m sorry for being an autonomous being with thoughts and opinions about what happens to me and my body.”

“Look at this.” Keyvan draws a line across the map with his finger. “This is what our scouts saw. Already the perimeter around the city is tightening. We don’t have the time to argue.”

“We have a backup plan to flee towards Lake Huron, and then go west,” Ugly Bob says. “We could take Kyle with us, then have Christophe take him to Nova Scotia through the Algonquin National Park.”

“I don’t _want_ to run,” you implore. “Come on - my friends took out ten drones on their own with just what they could buy from the local hardware store. Think about what we could do if we all worked together!”

“We do not have the time to put together an EMP bomb large enough to cover the entire of Toronto,” Keyvan says. “That is a useless pipe dream.”

“Still! We have an entire city’s worth of supplies at our disposal! There must be something we can do!”

Christophe tsks. “Such an optimist. How iz it zat you have survived sixteen years on this miserable planet in ze first place iz a mystery to me.”

“That’s right. I _am_ an optimist. Or at the very least I’m not a coward who runs before exploring all my options!”

“A stubborn refusal to run when ze odds are against you iz not bravery, Kyle. It iz how Martyrs are made.”

You slice a hand through the air to underline how very serious you are about this. “Don’t things like this keep happening in the first place because good people always run?” 

Christophe, of course, just laughs at you. “Who says we are ‘good people’?”

“Oh my God, don’t fucking do that.”

“What? Point out zat ze world is not black and white? _Je m'excuse sincèrement_.”

“Now, now -” Cartman chooses this moment to swagger towards the center off the table. “As much as I always love seeing Kyle eat shit in a spicy philosophical debate, let’s table this for a second.” He spins his finger in the air, and then plants it right in the center of the map. “Instead, check this out.”

The council members stare at him.

“... what are we ‘checking’ ‘out’?” Keyvan asks, unimpressed.

“Their supply line, asshole.” Cartman starts dragging his finger along a zig-zagging line of blue permanent marker, cuts it through the center of the city. “Look how it’s staged at these pissy little intervals and only on the major streets. There’s no auxiliary, so it’d be hella easy to disrupt.”

Keyvan crosses his arms. “That sound like conjecture to me.”

“Well, I don’t care if Shareef don’t like it,” Cartman shrugs. “It’s true. If you wanna turn tail and run, be my guest, but you’re missing out on a prime chance here to chop off the FBI’s dick off and serve it back on a platter with dijon mustard.”

“Why should we lizten to you?” Christophe takes a step towards Cartman and waves his cigarette in his face. “I remember you - ze fat little child who could not even keep guard long enough to keep ze guard dogs off our asses during a delicate operation.”

Cartman taps his chin and hums innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“ _Connerie_! If you do not remember zhis, than you are more stupid zan you look.”

Cartman snatches Christophe’s cigarette out of the air and dashes it out on the map, right at the center of the FBI supply line. “I’m not the one who got his ass kicked by a pack of puppies like a little bitch. No wonder this Resistance is in shambles when they’re all taking advice from a fuckin’ Surrender Monkey.”

“ _What_ ze fuck did you just call me!?”

This exchange is making you uneasy for some reason. Well, not for “some” reason. There’s a very specific reason it’s wigging you out. You shove between them and push Cartman back with both hands before Christophe can - justifiably - kick his ass. “Look, could you two just calm down for a second and focus on the topic… at… hand...” you trail off, because you’re finally getting a good look at the map.

“Mizter Broflovski?” Christophe sounds sincerely worried, which is kind of sweet. 

Your hands slide off Cartman’s coat as you take in the full details of the recon. “Holy shit,” you say quietly. “Cartman’s right.”

He cups a hand around his ear. “Mmm, what was that Kyle? Say it louder. Even better, say it into my phone so I can remix it with a dubstep drop in the middle.”

You whap him with the back of your hand. “Don’t be a dick about this. I’m being serious - look. The supply line gets tighter near the edge of the city. That’s weird, isn’t it? But not that weird when you consider the big design flaw of the FBI automatons.”

Christophe quirks an eyebrow. “Which is...?”

“German tanks,” Cartman replies, hovering at your shoulder. You grin.

“German tanks,” you agree.

“German tanks were hideous pieces of shit,” Christophe grumbles, lighting another cigarette to replace the one Cartman had so cruelly murdered.

“Exactly!” You can see it now, as crisp and clear as the sun reflecting off a plain of fresh snow. “Part of the reason German supply lines were inefficient in World War II, especially on the Eastern Front, was that their tanks were so over-designed that they couldn’t replace parts of one tank with another, not even between different generations of the same model.”

“You say over-designed,” Cartman interjects. “I say elegant marvels of sophisticated machinery.”

“Shut up, we’re not having this argument again. Anyway, the FBI Drones have the same problem, right?” You’ve seen a couple news segments on this. Filtered, of course, through a rose ( _and red-white-and-blue_ ) colored lens. The government has been bleeding its military budget like they’re dropping it into a sieve and trying to pass it off as entrepreneurial innovation.

“Actually…” Keyvan unfolds his arms and braces against the table so that he can take another look at the map. “You might be onto something here. When I still lived in Afghanistan, we often were able to salvage crashed drones to jury-rig our own equipment. We have attempted similar refurbishment programs here in Canada. It is not possible with these new models.”

“Well, what do you expect,” Cartman snorts, reaching around you to grab a scrap of paper and a marker. “They were designed by Tesla. Here, look - we bomb specific weak points, encircle them and their shitty drones like Uncle Joe squeezing Germany’s balls in Stalingrad until they popped.”

You angle a look at Cartman over your shoulder, genuinely impressed. “You know, I never thought your admiration of authoritarian regimes would come in handy, yet here we are. I guess suffering through all those History projects together paid off after all.”

Cartman waves the paper at you. “Suffering? We got an A+ on every single one of those projects! Admit it Kyle, we make a great team.”

“Yeah, when you can control yourself for ten seconds. _I’m_ not the teamwork barrier here, fat ass.”

He flutters his eyelashes as he hands you the plans. “Bullshit - you love having an excuse to shoot your mouth off about every little goddamn thing.”

“Is this part of your theory about how argumentation is the most constructive form of conversation.”

“Not the most constructive, Kyle,” Cartman whispers. “The most _intimate_.”

Your hands brush against each other as you tug the paper out of his hand. And then your heart starts pounding in horrible staccato because you realize suddenly that Cartman is flirting with you. And you - accidentally, reflexively - are flirting _back_. You cast a quick look around the room. Nobody seems to have noticed, except Kenny, who is rolling his eyes.

You clear your throat, hoping that your cheeks don’t look as hot as they feel. “So, y-yeah. This plan looks… surprisingly thorough, Cartman.”

Leslie 2.0, who has been watching the conversation unfold with the patience of a literal machine, gestures for you to hand her the paper. “Show me.”

You show her. Her irises glow as she processes the information, then she sets a thoughtful knuckle on her chin. “This might work. My only concern would be that many of these supply docks are built in parts of the city that have been completely leveled. We don’t generally operate without cover.”

“Leave that to me,” Kenny pipes up. “We brought enough potassium chlorate that I could whip up a dozen smoke-grenades tonight in case things go tits up.”

Leslie 2.0 nods. “It’s dangerous… but I suppose it’s no more dangerous than trying to escape the perimeter as it stands now. Commander, what do you think?”

The New Kid, surveying the map with a stern expression, gives Leslie 2.0 a single, affirmative blink.

“ _Tabarnak de câlisse_ ,” Christophe sighs. “Iz everyone from South Park fucking insane?”

“Well, if it’s decided, there’s only one thing to do now!” Ugly Bob exclaims with a clap.

“ _Oui_ ,” Christophe agrees. “We must get zo drunk zat we cannot even remember ze faces of ze hateful women who gave birth to us.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Uh… aren’t you supposed to save the celebration party for _after_ the mission?”

Ugly Bob tips his head and regards you through the eye-holes in his paper bag. “That’d be a pretty weird order to do it in, eh buddy? If we die tomorrow we won’t be able to get drunk.” He brushes past you and throws open the door to the office. “ _Salut_ , everyone! There’s a major operation tomorrow so it’s time to get absolutely head-over-feet smashed off our collective gourds!”

Apparently _“embarking on a dangerous mission with a brutal hangover”_ is not a concern in the Canadian Resistance. The Council members file out of the room, chatting amongst themselves, leaving you, Kenny and Cartman alone to ponder the map.

“Well guys, you know what they say:” Kenny rolls his shoulders and pulls a bag of weed out of his front pocket. “You only live once.”

You’ve never seen a party kick off so fast. The camp comes alive the moment Ugly Bob shouts the phrase _‘Good Ol’ Fashion Newfie Wineshine’_ and suddenly the corridors between the tents are filled with chattering Canadians dragging trash-cans of homemade alcohol out into the common area and whipping out their fiddles. By which you mean literal violins, not some lame canuck euphemism for “penis”. You give Leslie 2.0 a thin smile when she tries to push you towards the center of the food court and mumble something about needing to piss. You wander off, looking for a place to sit where you can watch the celebration without being in danger of looking like a sore thumb in need of soothing.

You end up camping out on a table nearest the edge of the food-court, hidden behind a huge-ass pillar and beneath the shadows of the passageway to the men’s washroom. You hitch your feet up the back of a chair and watch the party unfold. There’s some kids stringing christmas lights up over the abandoned A&W. You catch sight of Christophe graciously dumping something like three shots of cognac into Pip’s cup. Keyvan is rolling joints, you think, near the escalators.

Cartman approaches you with a can of Mountain Dew in one hand and a styrofoam cup of Ugly Bob’s “wineshine” in the other. And you’re feeling generous, so you don’t tell him to get lost.

“You’re welcome,” he says when you take the cup.

“I didn’t ask you to do anything,” you reply, waving the drink under your nose to make sure it doesn’t smell suspicious.

Cartman makes a long-suffering noise of supreme offense. “Kyle, do you really think I’d have anything to gain by drugging you right now?”

“Force of habit,” you grin, taking a sip. The wine is so tart it tastes like turpentine smells. You scrunch up your nose and keep drinking. Cartman hoists his massive body up on the table beside you, then pops his Mountain Dew open. The metal frame holding the booth in place shudders beneath you as he gets comfortable. You’d imagine that all this dramatic environmental feedback would make him consider losing a little fucking weight, yet there he is sucking back double-sugar soda like it’s water.

He notices you looking at him and offers you the can. “What, you want some?”

“God, no. And you shouldn’t want it either. That stuff’s going to rot your guts, Cartman, and you’ll be shitting out of a bag by the time you’re forty.”

“Hmm…” He sidles an inch closer and lowers his voice. “Then why don’t you use your spoooooky psychic powers to make me stop.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m not psychic. And if even if I was, I wouldn’t need to use my stupid, fake powers to get you to _do_ anything.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. All bark and no bite. You’re just jelly because you’ve got the shitty kidney and can barely handle normal Mountain Dew, let alone Code Red.”

“Believe it or not it’s possible to care about the people around you for their own sake. I don’t derive some sort of sick satisfaction from watching you slowly kill yourself.”

“Whatever,” Cartman makes a dismissive hand gesture. “I plan to be a filthy rich multi-millionaire by the time I’m thirty-five, so I can just get regular lipo sessions. _Before_ I’m forty, Kyle.”

“Ugh. You’re disgusting, you know that?”

“I might be that,” he sing songs. “But at least I know how to fucking enjoy myself.” And he takes a swig of Mountain Dew so deep you can’t believe he doesn’t down himself in it. _Well_ \- you already knew that Cartman has basically no gag reflex.

You run your thumb around the rim of your cup and watch him chug the soda back as fast as he can. You could practically track the beats of this conversation by predictive algorithm. Cartman never surprises you, except that he always does; your relationship is predictable in its unpredictability. The endless rollercoaster of escalation and uneasy alliances makes it comforting in it’s own strange way. Impossible to define and dug under your skin deeper than a major artery. 

“Oh my God,” you laugh softly. “This is stupid, but I was worried that I’d never see you again. Not just you obviously, but I can’t believe that I thought for a single second I’d miss you. And yet somehow, I did.”

Cartman snickers. “Wow. We haven’t even been apart a week. Stop being so clingy, Kyle - a man needs his space.”

“Uh huh,” you knock your shoulder against his. “You needed it so bad you drove all the way into the nuclear wastes of Toronto to see me.”

“That was all Kenny’s idea.”

“Oh please, Cartman. Like you would ever do something you didn’t want to do, even for Kenny. What’s your game here?”

“Jesus Christ, can you crawl out of my ass for one second? There’s no _game_ \- Kenny needed me for something. That’s it.”

You shake your head. “I don’t believe you. But… you know what? Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I actually do think it’s kind of cool that you came to “rescue” me. In the past, you would have just laughed and said good riddance.”

He chokes on his own breath; hocks something back and starts giggling nervously. “O-oh, y-yeah, d-definitely.” 

“... are you okay?”

“I’m fine. J-just thinking about how… totally sweet it would have been to have gotten you out of the way years ago. Alas, it takes more than inaction to make dreams a reality. Kenny might be the one who’s technically immortal, but you’re like a cockroach I just can’t get out of my hair.”

“Wha -”

He pokes you in the forehead. “ _Not_ a Jewish cockroach, so don’t start.”

“Now you’re just being weird. What’s going on?”

He ghosts his finger down your nose to rest it against your mouth. “Shhhh, Kahl, _shhhhhh_. Don’t worry your lovely little ginger head about it.”

You give him an exasperated look. He runs his finger across your upper lip, and his expression changes from patronizing to irritated. Without breaking eye contact, he digs in his coat pocket and produces a plastic tub about the size of a quarter. Your eyebrows go up to the hairline when you realize what it is.

“Is that... my prescription lip balm?”

Cartman hums an affirmative, and dips his thumb into the balm.

“Why do you have that?”

“Shut up for a second,” he whispers, and crawls his hand around the curve of your jaw. Your breath pulls in rough, and then doesn’t come out. You’re holding it in as his thumb drags over your lower lip, tracing the brittle edge of the scab as he smears the ointment into your skin. You’re forced to exhale when his nail digs into the corner of your mouth and pries it open so that he can glide the ointment along the underside of your top lip. 

“Tsk, tsk. You call me disgusting but you don’t even know how to moisturize.”

You want to pull away, to take a look around and see if anyone is watching you, to punch Cartman in the fucking nose for being a creep, but you can’t tear your eyes off the look of tender concentration on his face. His eyes are honey-colored beneath the dim light of the kerosene lamps, trained intently on the movement of his thumb pad over your raw skin. You’re dangling perilously in that exhilarating freefall space between “confused” and “turned-on”: lips stinging, nose filled with the scent of Cartman’s stupid celebrity-brand cologne. It’s so thick that it’s making you dizzy. Your hands go so tight around your cup that the styrofoam starts to crack. Cartman slides his palm around the back of your neck and slips the tip of his thumb between your teeth. You’re running on autopilot when your tongue uncurls to lick it. You can taste salt and copper beneath the acrid burn of the cream.

 _What the fuck is happening_ , you think. This isn’t the way you guys usually fool around. You haven’t touched each other this gently - not just sexually, but _period_ \- since you were children, and even then it was a rare occurrence. He starts to massage your neck, and you let him, eyes fluttering shut. 

“You _missed_ me, huh?” He murmurs, pushing a finger in alongside his thumb. “You always act so fuckin’ aloof but give you seventy-two hours on your own and you turn into a cock-hungry little slut.”

You slit one eye open to scowl at him. _This_ is why he’s usually the one with something stuffed halfway down his throat. Where did he even learn to talk like that? Scratch that; you know exactly where he learned to talk like that and thinking about it too hard just depresses you.

There’s a glassy sheen over his eyes like he’s about to cry, sweat gathering on his brow. _Interesting_. He’s trying to hide it but he’s all worked up because he knows this is probably the closest he’ll ever be to getting your lips around his dick. Cartman is too liberally indulged in every other aspect of his life, so there’s something _extremely_ satisfying about dangling the metaphorical lollipop just under his nose. It’s an abstract method of behavior modification: drawing a strict line in the sand and jerking the leash whenever he tries to toe over it. Do this enough times, and eventually he’ll learn.

Well, that’s what you tell yourself at least.

He slips a second finger in and you suck it in up to the third joint so fast that your cheeks hollow out. You can feel Cartman’s pulse do a backflip, hammering violently against the veins in your neck.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” he breathes, like he’s just seen the second coming.

“Awwww, nasty,” adds Butters, out of fucking nowhere. “Are we gonna have to watch you two fingerbang each other in public from now on?”

Your skeleton almost literally leaps out of your skin. You accidentally chop down on Cartman’s fingers and he squeals like you branded him with a hot iron. 

“Jesus _fuck_!” he hisses, sucking his wounded wounded hand into his own mouth. You both spin where you’re sitting to see Kenny and Butters staring at you, carrying a duffle bag each. “What the fuck is wrong with you Butters!?” Cartman demands.

“What’s wrong with me? Your the one practically makin’ your secret boyfriend blow your hand in front of half of Canada. I support your relationship even if I don’t agree with it, Eric, but this is just… well - it’s _indecent_.”

You cover your face with both hands, to hide both your blush and how hard you’re breathing. What the fuck was that? Who the fuck _are you_? “How about we forget this ever happened?” you mutter. More to yourself than to them.

“I wish I could,” Butters mumbles, rubbing at his bandages. “I’ll need about a whole gallon a’that wineshine to do it.”

“You’d better get started then.” Kenny hefts his bag onto the table and zips it open. You peer at the supplies through the gaps in your fingers: wire, batteries, fertilizer, packs of ammunition...

“Is the stuff for tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Butters lets his own bag drop to the floor. “There’s still some more in the car, but we parked it all the way back at Union Station and didn’t wanna carry it that far.”

“This’ll be enough,” Kenny assures, flipping out a pocket-knife. He slices open a bag of fertilizer and pokes it.

“Do you really think it will work?” For some reason getting Kenny’s confirmation on this feels like the most important thing in the world.

He shrugs, and licks the dirt off his finger. “Old people say that the only certain things in life are death and taxes, but the President doesn’t pay his taxes and I can’t die, so who the fuck knows anything.”

“Oh. Thanks. That’s comforting.”

“Nothing more comforting than knowing that we could die at any moment, so what we do doesn’t actually matter until we do it. You should be grateful to have that.”

He beams at you over the hemline of his scarf. He’s got a huge gap between his front-teeth which always gives his smiles an air of childish charm and innocence, no matter what horrible shit is coming out of his mouth.

A stampede of footsteps interrupts your conversation. You turn to see the Canadian kids from earlier approaching, the lead kid struggling under the weight of a huge Casio keyboard with a crack running down the back of its plastic casing.

“Eric, Eric!” The little redheaded girl grabs his pant-leg by the ankle. “We found this in the rubbish heap, and the batteries still work! You said you were a musician, yes?”

“A musician?” you mouth silently, not because Cartman isn’t, admittedly, a talented musician. He is. There’s just something absurd about the idea of him bragging about it to some random kids for… for what reason? You try to catch his gaze, but his eyes have gone as big as the moon at the sight of the keyboard.

“Hell _yeah_ \- give that here!” Cartman snatches it from the kid and switches it on eagerly. He tests the keys. _Plonk, plonk_. There’s a layer of scratchy feedback beneath the notes that says the speaker is damaged, but otherwise it sounds great. Cartman balances the instrument on his knees and starts playing scales to make sure all the keys works.

“Oo _oooh_ , Canada,” he sings to the tune of the Canadian National Anthem. “The lamest country on earth. And I’m stranded heeeere - with this petty bitch who won’t even say thank you when I literally saved his whole, entire life.”

“Not your best work,” you intone flatly.

The little girl tugs at his leg again. “Eric, do you know any Canadian folk songs? It’s been so long since we’ve heard the songs of our people.”

“Of course!” Cartman replies enthusiastically. “I know all the contraband classics!” 

He switches the Casio to the ‘electric guitar’ setting and begins plonking out the opening riff to Shania Twain’s _‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’_.

Kenny just sighs, and starts stuffing the fertilizer back into his duffle bag, departing to work on his bombs somewhere with significantly less Cartman.

“Fine, Kenny,” Cartman calls after him. “- be a fucking killjoy! We’re gonna start a band, and you’re not invited! Hey, Butters!”

Butters salutes when Cartman points at him.

“- you’re on drums.”

“Aye, aye!”

“Little Fredrick McLeod, go find me some worthless Canadian nickels and we’ll turn this can into a tambourine. Kyle, you can -” Cartman looks at you, lips pursed in deep thought. “Nevermind, I’ve heard you sing before. You just sit there and look pretty.”

You roll your eyes and push off the table. “Actually, I was gonna go get another drink.” You duck your cup behind your back to hide the accidental damage you did crushing it between your hands. It does no one any good for Cartman to get affirmative visual evidence that he has any effect on you whatsoever.

There’s dense crowds of partiers blocking all the wineshine stations, talking at each other with their thick Canadian accents. You keep your head down and try to find someone you know in the throng. Someone you know finds you first.

“Hallo, Kyle!” Pip calls out, jumping with his arm in the air so that you can see him over a row of tents. He’s standing with Christophe, some woman you don’t recognize and, ugh, _Chad_. You head over anyway, snatching a new cup of the table as you go. You slide between two sheets of canvas to join them. Chad scoops a pitcher into the wineshine can and pours you a cupful.

“Oh, Christophe luv, top Kyle off would you?” Pip sways drunkenly and pats Christophe on the chest.

Christophe - without asking your opinion - pours a shot of cognac into your wine. It can only improve the taste you suppose. You toss a look at Pip, whose pale cheeks are flushed bright pink.

“You decided you don’t hate me anymore, then?”

“Phillip loves ze entire world when he iz zhis many sheets to the wind,” Christophe mutters into the rim of his cup. Pip slaps him in the chest this time.

“Not everyone. I think that _you_ are a terrible, boorish prick no matter how much or how little liquor I consume. And I still think that you are _horrible_ , Kyle, but Kenneth told me that you are going through a difficult time right now and that I should ‘ease up’ on you. So, I am easing up!”

“Oh, uh.” You set the cup to your lips, but don’t drink. “Kenny said that?”

“Have you met _Chad_?” Pip asks, overloud.

You sigh. “Yes, I’ve met Chad.”

“It’s amazing,” Chad laughs. “This guy - he fucking hates my guts even though he’s white!”

Pip gestures to the fourth member of their little drinking cabal. She’s a teenage girl - well, maybe early 20’s; kind of a goth-ey, with a lighting-shaped teal streak died into her hair. She’s sipping her wine quietly, watching you with mascara-caked raccoon eyes.

“- and this is Eve. She’s a new member of the Resistance too. Christophe extracted her from a research facility but only a few months ago.”

“And what’s your superpower?” you ask, and try very hard not to sound like a _complete_ dick.

She grins. There’s black lipstick chipped off on her front teeth. “Oh, I turn invisible when I state my sexuality.”

“We call her _Bi-Erasure_ ,” Chad yaps excitedly. “Eve, show him!”

She looks hard put upon by the request, but cups a hand around her mouth anyway. “Hey, everyone. Did you know that I like both men and women!”

Nothing happens, but Chad’s eyes pop right open. “Amazing, right?”

“I can still see her,” you say.

“Well,” Eve replies. “It doesn’t work on other bisexual people.”

“Attention everyone!” Butters’s voice cuts in above the noise of the party. “There’s gonna be a concert in the common area in five minutes! All the Canadian classics you love, but the US Government refuses to let y’all hear! _And_ we’re takin’ requests! So show up or um -” he glances at a paper he’s been reading off of and his eyebrows knit together in concern. “Or g-go fuck yourselves? Aw, Eric…”

Christophe finishes his cigarette and… tosses it into the wineshine can, because of course he does. “Well, zat sounds like my queue to go check ze forward defenses.”

You shrug apologetically. “I should probably go too, and humor my stupid friends.” 

Cartman’s recruited a Newfie fiddler for his DIY concert, along with little Fredrick McLeod and his Mountain Dew can tambourine. Butters is warming up his drumming skills on an empty chicken tub, using two wooden spoons as sticks. They’re already several measures into their first song when you manage to find a seat. The tables around the common area fill up fast, so you sit yourself down on the tile. There’s a hole here that cuts through all three floors of the mall and up to the roof, and someone’s built a campfire in an overturned trash-can lid. It’s homey, kind of. As homey as it can get in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

You shut your eyes and let the warmth wash over as you listen to Cartman warble his way through some soppy Blue Rodeo song that you only recognize because this was Ike’s go-to cry-band when his first age appropriate girlfriend broke up with him. The adults in the crowd are singing along.

It’s nice, actually. Comforting, in a familiar way. It’s not much different than how your class overnight trips usually go, minus a Lovecraftian God or two emerging from the depths of the earth. Living in the middle of nowhere halfway up a mountain is probably the closest an American can get to living in Canada anyway. Cartman and the band seamlessly segue the Blue Rodeo ballad into a folk ditty about some ship sinking in Lake Ontario. Grim, but soothing. So soothing that you nearly fall asleep halfway through the tenth chorus.

Passing out where you’re sitting is little harder to do when Cartman starts leading his band into a bouncy, acoustic remix of _‘Call Me Maybe’_. You crack your eyes open to watch the relish with which Cartman bangs out that mind-numbing four-chord pop progression. There are few things in the world he loves more.

“That last one was dedicated to Our Lady Of Immaculate Synthpop, Saint Carly Rae. May Jesus rest her soul.” He crosses himself - backwards, you notice - before resting his fingers on the keys to start the next song.

Someone in the crowd starts weeping.

Now that your eyes are open, you can see that the entire camp has come out to experience the “concert”. The kids are all gathered around the band, clapping to the beat of Butters’s drumming. You can see hardworn Canadian couples holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. Even the New Kid is watching the proceedings with a quirk to their mouth that looks about 25% into making a facial expression. It’s actually pretty impressive how Cartman has brought the whole party together almost effortlessly and on nothing more than a whim. That he’s capable of this kind of thing when he’s not being, y’know, _evil_ , is why you can never quite give up on him completely.

And it really has been a while since he’s done anything dictionary-definition “evil”, so maybe you could afford to lighten up on him a bit.

“The next one goes out to all those people in _difficult_ relationships,” Cartman says, switching key on his intermediary scales. He signals for Butters to change the tempo of the beat. “You know what I’m talking about - when you love someone, and they treat you bad. But you just can’t stop crawling back to them, because no matter what happens, you love that bitch, and you ain’t ever gonna stop loving that bitch.”

And then he looks _straight at you_ as he starts to sing: “ _It's been one week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said: I'm angry._ ”

Never-fucking-mind. Whatever tender thoughts just flickered traitorously through your head dissipate immediately. Momentary insanity; it always passes.

Still, you hold eye contact as he gazes at you and rambles his way through some nonsense lyrics about sushi and roast chicken. “ _Can I help it if I think you’re funny when you’re mad,_ ” he croons, “ _I’m trying hard not to smile, though I feel bad_.”

He _winks_ at you.

You roll your eyes, and finish drinking your wineshine. Cartman has never felt bad about a thing he’s done to you in his entire life. He could at least have the decency to serenade you _truthfully_.

Someone slides in to sit beside you. You recognize the smell even before you look up.

“Hey, Christophe.” 

“Mizter Broflovski.” He pulls one knee up to his chest and hangs his arm over it, tapping his cigarette in time with the beat of the music.

“What happened to the forward defenses?”

“Eh - your friend Kenny zeems to know what he iz doing.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Christophe glances across the fire at where the band is still going at it. “... zhis song is horrible,” he says after a moment, chewing on the filter of his smoke.

“Is really is,” you agree, and lean back on your palms. Cartman is _definitely_ just fucking ad-libbing the lyrics now because you’re pretty sure a song from 1998 wouldn’t have anything politically substantial to say about the Kardashians otherwise. “But it’s making everyone happy, so from that perspective, isn’t it actually good?”

“You really never stop with zhis ‘glass half full’ shit, do you?”

“If the glass was empty in the first place, I’m right,” you reply without missing a beat.

“ _Jésus putain christ_.” Christophe sucks a final drag off his cigarette stub and squishes it out on the floor. Then he puts a hand on your thigh and you realize you’ve made a huge fucking mistake.

Christophe leaning into kiss you goes like the re-play of a gruesome, ten car pile-up: you experience it in excruciating slow motion, you can’t look away and there’s no survivors. His lips press against yours. You don’t kiss back. Or close your eyes. Or breathe. _BLANNCK_ goes Cartman on the keyboard.

Christophe pulls back. “What is wrong?” he whispers, and how kind and concerned he’s trying to sound makes your gut roil. His line of sight follow yours as you slowly turn your head to look at Cartman; Cartman, who looks so _cartoonishly_ aghast that he could be a Chuck Jones drawing. It’s gone dead silent all around you. Well, shit.

“You -” he gasps. “You… HARLOT!”

You can always count on Cartman to say something that invalidates his side of the argument before you can muster up any sympathy. He smashes the keyboard against the ground and gets to his feet. 

You follow suit. “Don’t make a scene, Cartman,” you plead.

“Don’t make a scene!?” his voice cracks, so high it’s like a horse whinny. “You’re the one making a scene you - you CHEATER!”

Your fists clench, and so do your teeth. “How can I _cheat_ ,” you growl. “When we’re not even in a _fucking relationship_ , you delusional moron.”

Cartman taps his chin. “HmmmMMMM, were we _‘not in a relationship’_ half an hour ago when you were practically deepthroating my fingers?”

Jesus _christ_. You rake a hand under your hat so that you can tug at your hair. That little pinch of pain helps you keep your voice even. “Okay, that’s real nice, Cartman. The fact that you think nothing of humiliating me in front of a crowd of strangers is the reason I can barely even call you my _friend_ , let alone my boyfriend. Have you ever thought for even ten seconds about how your behavior affects other people!?”

“Yes! I have! Because _you_ told me to! Jesus, Kyle, you’re always so high on your own fucking farts you can’t see your own hand in front of your face! Maybe we’d have an easier time here if you acknowledged when I was making an effort!”

You boggle at him. “ _Are_ you making an effort??”

He raises his arms. “I went to _therapy_ for you, Kyle!”

“No, fat ass. You got arrested and sectioned. And then you broke out less than two days later, otherwise you wouldn’t even _be here_!”

“What? You don’t want me to be here!?”

“That’s right! I never asked you to be here! Just like I never asked you to “like” me, or to hate me, or to have whatever sick sociopathic fixation it is that you have on me! You always start this shit expecting me to finish it! It never occurs to you that I might get sick of it eventually!”

“Are you sick of it?” he asks, deadly serious.

You lick your lips, which still taste like balm. One of his nails scratched the roof of your mouth on the way out. You press your tongue against the cut and feel your heart go _ba-dump_. More than once you’ve choked him so hard that he had trouble eating for days afterwards. It was over two weeks that first time. You could kill him, you really could. 

Your mouth forms the shape of the word ‘yes’, but it comes out so soft you’re not even sure you actually said it. Cartman heard it, though, and the word goes through him like a bullet. His expression flickers through several permutations of “crestfallen” to “devastated” before he settles on “insulted”. He spins his wrists and points in the direction of the food court exit.

“You know what? I don’t need this shit. Screw you guys, I’m gonna go sulk in the bathroom. Enjoy your french lessons, _Kahl_.”

Butters clicks his tongue. “I guess what Chris Brown says is true, huh Kyle?” he chides. “Hos just ain’t loyal.” He jogs to catch up to Cartman, ever the loyal lapdog.

You watch them go, heart pounding so hard you’re starting to worry something’s going to snap in there. Then you notice that everyone in the entire goddamn camp is staring at you.

“What the hell are you all looking at!?” you snap. Something in your tone kickstarts the social-shame centers in these people’s conscience, and the crowd gets suddenly and awfully preoccupied with the business of picking themelves up and loudly talking about anything but the salacious incident of teenage romantic drama they just witnessed.

 _Romantic drama_. God. 

Christophe is still sitting on the tile, staring at you with a look of veiled curiosity. You stare back.

“Him?” Christophe drawls in disbelief. “Really, Kyle?”

“It’s -” you sigh and massage your temples. “ _Complicated_.”

Christophe shrugs, palms held aloft. “Well. It iz not like I did not already know zat you have _exécrable_ taste.”

You don’t really have a response to that. You blow him off with a flippant hand gesture and go to find Kenny. The least melodramatic of your dumb friends is camped out on the third floor of the mall. A quarter of the wall facing Toronto’s downtown has been blasted off completely. You climb the watch-tower where Kenny's rolling his smoke bombs together, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.

He acknowledges you with a smile, and keeps working. You sit down and watch him pour salt onto a sheet of aluminum foil. His face is lit from above by the soft, blue moonlight and from below by a pocket-flashlight. Kenny’s so scrawny and baby-faced that that he looks like he hasn’t gone through puberty yet. You always figured this was due to malnutrition, but now you’re wondering if it has something to do with the amount of time he’s spent dead.

He twists the sheet of foil closed and sets it to the side where’s he’s already got a whole row of little bomb-hearts prepped and ready to go. He digs a match out of his pocket and lights his cigarette. On first exhale, he turns to you and asks: “You okay?”

You pull your knees up to your chest and bite your lip. “... did you seriously hear all that?”

Kenny nods.

It'd be great to have a public interaction with Cartman that wasn’t also experienced by everyone in a hundred mile radius for once.

“Cartman will get over it,” Kenny says around his cigarette.

You shoot him a sidelong glance. “Do I _want_ him to get over it, though? Maybe this is for the best.”

“... hmm. You think so?”

“Ugh.” You squeeze your eyes shut and crane your head back. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Kenny shrugs, and goes back to work. 

The sky is so clear tonight that the moon is burning light right through your eyelids. You’re thinking, for some reason, about that time in fourth grade where you got everyone to agree to ignore Cartman for a whole week after the infamous Chicken Skin Incident. After just forty-eight hours of having no one but Butters to talk to he cracked and began a desperate attempt at crafting himself a characteristically theatrical redemption arc. The sincerity of his actions were dubious, but at the same time… what is sincerity? Like, _materially_ what _is_ it? Is it what you say, or what you do? Are _you_ being sincere when you promise your mother that keeping on top of your chore-list is important to you, and you’ll do better next time? Behavior is more important than intent, and a change in behavior can trigger a change in psychology, right? But you’ve been struggling to change Cartman’s behavior for your entire damn life.

 _Are_ you sick of it?

Are you sick of _him_?

“Actually, I _do_ want to talk about it.”

Kenny blinks at you, which you take as an invitation to start ranting.

“Everyone keeps telling me that I should stop acting like Cartman is my responsibility, but Cartman _makes_ himself my responsibility! Why should I take equal blame for all the shit he starts when I’m the only one who’s ever successfully _stopped_ any of his dumb plots! It’s like how people are always saying there’s two sides to every political issue no matter how stupid one side of the argument gets! Sometimes someone is just a fucking nazi. Like Cartman, for example!”

Kenny blinks again. You unfold your legs and start gesturing wildly.

“I mean - this is all classic Cartman, right? He thinks he’s owed something just because he wants it! ‘Wanting’ and ‘possessing’ are the same thing in his mind, so he thinks he finally owns me now just because he pressured me into letting him suck my dick a few times. Seriously - he thinks that I belong to him! It’s ludicrous that he could ever expect me to put a single second of consideration into the idea of _dating_ him when he’s probably looking at this like another one of his little dominance games. Like, if he can’t beat me in a fistfight, or break me down in an ideological battle, then this is the one way he _can_ get to me! One of these days I’m going to let my guard down and give him an _inch_ , and he’s gonna be like _‘Ha ha, Kahl, I tricked you and in ten seconds a video I digitally doctored of you giving Butters a handy is going to go live on the school website’_!”

Kenny’s laughing into sleeve of his jacket.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh. It’s just that you’re so close, but so, _so_ far from the point.”

You narrow your eyes. “What does that mean?”

Kenny pops his lips around his cigarette. “Have you ever asked Cartman why he’s so obsessed with you?” he asks.

“Why would I do that?”

“Why not?”

“Because, Kenny, it wouldn’t accomplish anything.”

Kenny flicks his cigarette over the side of the building and starts loading bomb supplies into his duffle bag. “Well,”he shrugs and rolls to his feet. “If you don’t, you’ll never know.”

He hitches the bag over his shoulder and descends the ladder, leaving you to contemplate that advice for a few seconds. You run your teeth along the scab on your lower lip, which is already beginning to heal over.

You follow down the ladder and stop Kenny at the top of the escalator. “Hey, sorry for making you listen to all that,” you say, rubbing your cheek. “I haven’t even thanked you properly for coming to rescue me.”

Kenny grins at you, so wide and sincere it lights up the whole mall. “No problem. You’re one of my best friends, Kyle. I’d do anything for you and Stan, and even Eric sometimes.”

You grin back, beyond grateful in this moment to have at least one friend with whom you always know where you stand.

Kenny’s expression changes subtly and he tugs at the hemline of his scarf. “I really mean that, you know. When we were younger I actually used to resent the shit out of you.”

The smile wipes off your face. Wait. Kenny doesn’t give you a chance to ask what he means by that, because he keeps going.

“It wasn’t that I was jealous of how happy and well off your family was or anything, but you did kind of rub it in my face a lot. I know you were just oblivious to your privilege, but you can be so self righteous that some of the stuff you said about my parents, or my clothes, or my house, cut _way_ deeper than any stupid crack Cartman could ever make about poor people all being alcoholics. And beyond that… well, I get that you had some pretty bad health problems when you were a kid and no one actually remembers the horrible things that happen to me, but it was still hard for me to watch everyone lose their collective shit every time you had a so much as a fucking _flu_. That’s not your fault, dude, but I was angry about my powers for a long time and that anger got re-directed at you more than I wanna admit. I came pretty close to wishing you would die already a few times.”

You’re honestly speechless. This is the longest sustained string of words you’ve ever heard Kenny say in sixteen years of knowing him, and you had no idea that he’d felt this way. His smile comes back and he lets out a relieved breath.

“Wow, it feels great to get all that off my back.” He throws his arms around your shoulders and hugs you tight. “Love you, bro.”

“Anyway, nice talk. I’m gonna go find Keyvan and get blitzed out of my head on some primo Afghan kush.”

It takes you whole minutes to recover. You stare at the mouldering ceiling, arms hanging at your side, face still contorted in an expression of bewilderment.

“Nothing in my life fucking makes sense anymore,” you say aloud, to absolutely no one.

*

If someone had told you that one day you’d be stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland about to embark on a mission to disrupt the border perimeter of a militarized FBI unit that was gunning for your head and your biggest problem in this entire crazy scenario was the fact that you accidentally seeded an imaginary love triangle between the two shittiest people you’ve ever met, you would have… well, you wouldn’t have even dignified it with a response. You probably would have tucked it into your mental inventory of ‘Reasons Psychic Powers Are Totally Fake’.

Christophe barely spares you a second glance as he sweeps around the “war room” collating plans, handing out bombs and detonators and shouting orders on walkie-talkie to Resistance members stationed in other parts of the city. Of course he would give zero fucks. You didn’t expect him to take it seriously in the first place, but his indifference is still a relief.

Cartman, on the other hand, is obviously taking it _very_ seriously. He’s barely said a word all morning, which is why you do a full body cringe when Christophe says:

“Broflovski, Cartman, McCormick, Stotch - how about you make yourzelves useful and take point 6-A.”

“Is that a good idea?” you say miserably.

“I assume zat childhood friends who have known each other zheir entire lives should be able to put differences aside for ten fucking minutes to avoid getting fucking killed. Unless... zhere is a problem?”

Cartman comes to pick up the C4 charge. He pushes up on his toes until he’s eye-level with Christophe and growls: “There won’t be any problems if from now on you keep your filthy french paws _off my man_ , bitch.”

 _Oh my God_. You pinch the bridge of your nose. Why the is he like this? When the rest of the assignments are handed out, Christophe approaches you, back to the group.

“Here, take zhis,” he whispers, sliding the detonator right into your pocket. “Don’t let him see you with it.”

You sigh. “Dude, don’t worry. I can handle him.”

“I wonder,” Christophe replies with a puff of smoke. You can see Cartman watching you from over his shoulder.

The four of you walk in total silence towards the operation point.

“Golly, it’s sure nice weather we’re havin’, huh?” Butters says after fifteen minutes of that.

“Butters, don’t start,” you mutter. “Anyway, we’re underground.”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He wrings his hands together and shuts up.

The operation point is a subway juncture where the tunnel loops into a separate line. Most of the tunnel is collapsed, but the gaps in the rubble are big enough for a human to crawl through without much trouble, which means that it’d be even easier for a drone to maneuver. You’re supposed to set charges above and below ground. Kenny hands Butters half the C4 and points up with his thumb.

“Butters, come with me.”

Butters looks back and forth between you and Kenny and stutters: “B-but - sh-should we really... er I mean… ain’t it better to stick together?”

Kenny makes eye contact with you over his head. “We’ll all be fine,” he says.

And then he fucking leaves you alone with Cartman, like he’s doing you a favour.

You and Cartman stay on opposite sides of the tunnel, molding your separate chunks of explosives into strategically chosen cracks in the cement and projecting auras of irritation so thick that the waves crash against each other at the center of the track. The acoustics of the tunnel amplifies the sound of Cartman’s breathing in a way that makes it feel like you’re listening to it through headphones. That’s a noise you hear in your fucking nightmares, you’ve snapped awake to it hovering over you so many times in your life. With a knife, or a baseball bat, or - most often - a rag soaked in chloroform. You’re suffocating in it.

So you crack first.

“Does Kenny really expect us to talk about this?” you ask, brushing dirt off your knees as you stand.

“There’s nothing to talk about anyway,” Cartman replies, voice so light it practically dissolves into mist.

You spit out a short, humourless laugh “Seriously? After all this time, _that’s_ what finally makes it so you’re done with me? Knowing that I gave a handy to some other guy?”

“Kyle. I honestly don’t give a single flying fuck that you fucked around.”

You cross your arms. “Really? ‘Cause it seems like you do.”

He’s quiet for a moment, concentrating on connecting the right wires to the blasting caps. You can hear his teeth grinding as he turns whatever he’s about to say over and over again in his mouth. 

What he eventually says is: “... you let him kiss you.” His tone of voice is volatile in a way that makes alarms start going off in your head; low and husky, quivering at the edges. You can’t tell if it’s the prelude to a truly intense bout of crocodile tears, or an attempted murder.

“What?”

Cartman gets to his feet and crosses the tunnel so that you’re standing face to face. “Why won’t you kiss me?” he asks quietly.

“The same reason I won’t suck your dick,” you retort. “I’ve seen what you eat.”

“Wait -” his eyes go wide. “That’s the _only_ reason your won’t suck my dick?”

You can hear tires screeching in your head as your brain does a desperate course correction away from that tactical error.

“No, asshole.” You unfold your arms and shove him, just a little bit. “I won’t kiss you - or suck your dick, _jesus_ \- because you’re a psychopath, and we hate each other.”

Cartman sets a knuckle to his lips. “Do we, Kyle?” he asks with mock innocence. “Is that really what you think?”

“Yes? We’ve always hated each other, Cartman, ever since we were old enough to talk! You’re like this with everyone - you overintimate your relationships because you can’t handle being alone! What else could _this_ -” you wave a hand between the two of you, gesturing towards his neck. “- be but the result of _hate_!? God!” You spin on your heel and take a few restless, frustrated steps towards the tunnel entrance. “You’re so fucking stupid, I have no idea why I even waste my ti -acK!”

Cartman grabs your shoulder and shoves you against the wall so hard that it knocks you breathless. Then he slams his hand into the cement - an inch from your face - and presses you flat against the cold cement.

“Say it,” he hisses, breath washing over your face. “You keep talking and talking, but you’re not actually _saying_ it, Kyle.”

“Saying _what_?”

“ ‘We hate each other’. ‘We’ve always hated each other’. Talking about other people. Passive language is a cop out, and I know that you’ve never copped out on anything in your entire life. So say it if you believe it. Say that you _hate_ me.”

“Cartman, we don’t have time for this.”

You try to wiggle out from under him, but he sets his other palm against the wall, caging you in. You hate this more than anything, these horrible moments where you’re forced to acknowledge that he’s still getting taller and you _aren’t_. Not at the rate he is at least. He’s gotta weigh at least twice what you do these days. You’re 99.9% certain you could still take him in a serious fight if you had to, but that 0.1% of doubt didn’t exist when he was just a chubby kid with half an inch on you and a famous glass jaw.

“Say it. Say _‘Eric, I hate you’_.”

“You’re such a fucking child, Cartman,” you mutter, and you don’t think you’ve ever sounded more exhausted in your life. “You’ve told me that you hate me - literally _everything about me_ \- thousands of times for as long as I can remember. You hate my hair, my religion, my race, my parents, my voice, my nose… stop acting so wounded when _you’re_ the one who started it. I don’t have to do or say shit when you’ve made yourself perfectly clear.”

Cartman’s mouth twitches into a nasty grin. “Oh, Kyle. Kyle, Kyle, _Kyle_ …” He slithers a hand up under your hat so that he can tangle his fingers in your hair. “Kyle, you brilliant, beautiful idiot. Light of my life, thorn in my side, a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter’s night. You really don’t know anything, do you?”

You watch the motion of his hand as it coasts down to stroke your cheek. “This kind of thing is exactly what I meant when I said you were a psychopath thirty seconds ago, by the way.”

He grabs your jaw and forces you to look him in the eyes. “I didn’t have to be so nice, Kyle. I did that because you asked.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He touches his nose to yours and murmurs: “What do you _think_ it means?”

Your heart skips a beat. You try to keep your breathing steady even though it’s going all over the place inside your chest. “I think it means that you’re a pussy, Cartman. You’re a fucking coward. You don’t have the guts to do any of the shit you’re insinuating.”

“You really think I don’t?” Cartman purrs, stroking a thumb over your throat. You clench your jaw so hard the joints crack.

“Then do it,” you hiss. “If you think you can. _Force_ me to suck your balls. Force me to do whatever the hell it is you want me to do.”

Cartman’s hand slips off your neck and into his pocket. You see the handgun glint in the half-light for just a second before he presses the barrel into the flesh of your thigh. You suck in a shocked breath and feel your fingers curl into the wet cement behind you. He trails a path up the line of your femoral artery and rests the gun - muzzle tilted in - against your cock, which gives a disloyal little twitch at the sensation.

You let out a weak, shaky laugh. “What are you gonna do. Blow my dick off? That’ll be your loss considering how much you love _choking on it_.”

Cartman glides the gun up to your gut and whispers directly into your ear: “If I shot you from this angle, it would take you hours to die. But the worst damage would be done right away. Just five minutes for the internal bleeding to become irreparable.”

“Uh huh. Did you see that on CSI?”

“No, Kyle. I read it on the deepweb. And I’ve seen it in real life too. It _works_.” He twists his grip on the gun, digging it under your bottom rib and pushing until you can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. An awful, cracked moan crawls out of your throat and Cartman sucks it in like he’s smelling a freshly cooked pot roast. “Just one bullet is all it takes,” he hums against your temple. “I could leave, and by the time Kenny and Butters found you, it’d be too late. And then I’d be free - from you, and your hideous clown hair and your endless fucking whining. I could finally do whatever I want, _be_ whatever I want. No one could stop me.”

You shove your hand in your pocket and grip the detonator tight. “Pull that trigger, Cartman,” you growl. “And I’ll blow us both up where we stand. And you know I don’t bluff.”

“Mutually assured destruction, Kyle? Oh, that’s so _adorable_.” He eases back so that he can examine your face. Whatever he sees there deepens the sick expression of pleasure he’s sporting. “Actually, no. What it is, is fucking hot.” He dislodges the gun from your stomach so that he can crush it against your lips. “You want to die together?” he asks, slipping the muzzle into your mouth and wrenching it open. He sticks the barrel down your throat so fast that you do a full body convulse and accidentally bash your head against the wall. Cartman pushes deeper, shoving it in sideways so that you’re forced to take it up to the slide-lock. “Or do you want to turn yourself into a martyr right here just because you’re too fucking proud to return a sexual favor or two?”

You’re floating somewhere above your body. Maybe it’s because you hit your head harder than you thought. Maybe it’s Cartman’s crack about becoming a martyr. He looks straight at you when rocks the gun back and forces you to fellate it, eyes pulled so wide with disgust and desire and fascination that you can see the surface of his sclera shuddering. That’s what he wants: for you to look at him like that - for you to _look_ at him the same way he looks at you. So you -

\- you shut your eyes, take a deep breath, let your fingers go loose around the detonator. You tilt your head back to accommodate the girth of the pistol, breathe through your nose, do nothing to suppress the disgusting sounds that gurgle out of you when the muzzle hits the back of your throat. You endure. This is the one weapon in your arsenal Cartman can never hope to counter: the restraint and self-control to _not react_.

He stops after a minute, breathing hitched. “The _fuck_?” he whispers, sliding the gun out of your mouth. You immediately start coughing up foam and bile. “You didn’t even pretend to be scared. What the hell Kyle? Do you seriously _want_ to die?”

“I’m not scared of you, Cartman,” you rasp into the back of your hand, throat burning. “I learned a long time ago that you can only hurt me if I let you.”

His placid veneer finally cracks. “Well, that’s fuckin’ _nice_ for you, Kyle,” he snarls. “You hurt me just by fucking existing! _Shit_...” He makes a noise of primal frustration yanks at his hair with both hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, I hate you so much! I’d blow off my _own_ fucking balls right here and now if I thought it would mean I never had to _think_ about you again! But it wouldn’t!”

And you - _edge your toe out over the line and pull the reel in taut_. “I don’t know, Cartman. That sounds like a personal problem to me.”

His eyes flash with a bolt of rage so pure you feel it jolt through you as well. He tucks the muzzle of the gun - still slick with your spit - under your chin and tips your face up to meet his. You hear the safety click off. He’s trembling; you can feel it reverberating through the metal of the gun, but also because his face is so close to yours that all he would have to do to kiss you is _exhale_. Almost unconsciously, you bite your lip. Your teeth drag over the dry skin and pop your mouth open so that you’re breathing down each other’s throats. 

Cartman doesn’t make a move. 

Is this it? You’re flushed and half-hard, pressed so tight against the the wall that you couldn’t escape if you wanted to, and all he’s got the guts to do is hover there, half a centimetre from kissing you with a look on his face like he’s swallowed a fly. Your lips brush against his when you speak, so quietly you’re sure he’s only hearing you through the vibrations in the air between you. 

“What the hell are you waiting for?” 

You never get an answer. The sound of footsteps echo down the hallway, and Cartman whips the gun away so fast it’s like he’s spiriting it away into another dimension. The only time he has reflexes at all is if he thinks he’s going to get in trouble.

Kenny waves. “Hey. Sorry to crash your cute little G rated rape-play session, but we have to go.”

Cartman turns away, cupping a hand over his mouth like he’s gonna barf. You close your eyes and sigh: long, thin and through your teeth. “Kenny. I _know_ that you think before you speak.”

“Yeah,” Kenny replies without a hint of remorse.

Well, at least Butters didn’t see this time. You don’t think you could survive one more hot take on your “love life” from Leopold fucking Stotch without being tempted to _actually_ crack his skull in half.

During the long walk back to the Resistance camp, Kenny sidles up to you and asks, in a hushed tone: “Well? Do you feel better?”

You avert your eyes and give him a noncommittal shrug. But the bitch of it is… you really do.

“Seven hours,” Keyvan tells the group back at the basecamp. “And then we can start setting the charges off. We will do so in a northward pattern, moving in formation towards the outer edge of the city center. And then we secure the perimeter.”

“Yes. So far it’s gone off without a hitch.” Leslie 2.0 claps her hands together. They make a metallic clang where the fake skin has peeled back to reveal her exoskeleton. “Until then…” she smiles. “Everyone, please get some sleep.”

You drift around the camp until you're back at the hole in the ceiling where you and Cartman had your public tiff the day before. You stand beneath it and watch the sky turn from grey to orange to red. Was a red sky in the evening supposed to be a good omen, or a portent? You can’t remember. Your grandma Schwartz was always reciting bits of old sailor’s wisdom, even though what she actually meant when she said she was from a “small fishing village” was that she was from fucking Jersey.

Christophe finds you like that: standing with your head tilted back, trying to remember some dumb mariner’s rhyme you haven’t heard since you were six years old.

“A penny for your thoughts…” he says, tapping a cigarette out of its case.

“Canada discontinued pennies before the bombs dropped, right?”

“Yes. Zat is the joke.”

“Oh. I get it now.”

He lights the cigarette and stands with you in disturbingly companionable silence.

“What do you see when you look at me?” you ask him after a few minutes, still looking at the sunset. The smoke is highlighting the dust in the air, making it shimmer gold and pink. “Please don’t make a smart remark. I want you to answer honestly.”

Christophe seems to take this under serious consideration. You slide your eyes to the side and watch him study you with his dark irises glittering. He breathes smoke out through his nose, two long, pale ribbons.

“What I see…” he says, tapping ash onto the floor. “- is someone who is very much not ze type to ask such a question. You strike me as a person who knows exzactly what he is.”

“I thought I did,” you murmur, running your palm across your throat, which is still burning. “But I’m kind of arrogant, aren’t I? I think that assuming I already had myself all figured out is kind of screwing me over.”

Christophe gives you a long, sympathetic once over. Then he sets a palm on your head and ruffles your hair through your hat.

“Go get some sleep, Mizter Broflovski.”

You re-adjust your hat and drag your way to the barracks, fumbling along the train until you find a car that’s empty. You’re trying, unsuccessfully, to fashion Christophe’s scarf into a pillow when a fat shadow falls across the entrance of the cab.

“What do you want, Cartman?” you ask, before he can say anything stupid.

“I forgive you,” he stupidly says anyway. “For banging some french floozy behind my back.”

You glance at him over your shoulder. “You’re supposed to apologize before saying that, idiot.”

He actually looks vaguely penitent, standing with one hand gripping the doorframe and the other hanging uselessly at his side. You see his fingers tighten around the frame, chipping off little flakes of rust. “ _Fiiiiine_. I’m _sorry_ , Kyle, for skullfucking you with the barrel of a gun just to prove a point.”

“Okay,” you say, and go back to setting up your makeshift bed.

“That’s all you have to say? I fucking apologize like you’re always saying I should, and you just blow me off? What the hell, Kyle?”

“Cartman, why would I want to talk to you after that exchange we just had? I mean - why do you want to talk to _me_? You’re the one who said you’d shoot your own dick off just so you’d never have to jerk it to the thought of me ever again. You don’t have to -” you make quotation marks in the air. “ _‘Forgive’_ me if you don’t want to. It’s totally within you power to fuck off forever and never bother me again.”

“But I... don’t I want to,” he says.

“ _Why_?”

“Because I…” he sounds a little lost. “I… love you?”

You spin on your heel to gape at him “ _What_??” you demand. 

He’s not looking at you. His eyes are fixed on some point just to the left of you, getting wider by the second. “I love you,” he says again, more confident this time. 

“That doesn’t even begin to answer the question. What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?”

Cartman’s attention snaps back to the conversation at hand, and he clutches his chest “It’s means that I’m in love with you! This isn’t rocket science, Kyle.”

“No, you -” You drag your fingers down your face in frustration. “Cartman, you can’t just say you _love_ me out of nowhere. You don’t even know what love is.”

“Uh, yeah I do.” He holds up two fingers. “I don’t want to fuck anyone but you, and I don’t want you fucking anyone but me, for the rest of our lives.”

“That’s posessision you fat, stupid fuck! I _believe_ you feel _possessive_ of me.”

“What’s the big fucking difference then!”

You throw your arms up in the air. “Oh my GOD. The fact that you don’t know is the whole problem! You couldn’t define love if you meditated on it for the rest of your miserable, shitty life, because you’re incapable of _feeling_ it!”

“The rest of my life?” he laughs, and does a little clockwise spin with one of his fingers before pointing it at you. “ _Please_ , Kyle, with bet parameters that ambiguous you’re just setting yourself up for failure.”

“I’m not making a bet with you, Cartman. I’m telling you why you’re never going to be able to form a genuine bond with another human being even if you live to be a hundred years old!”

He takes a step into the train car and leers at you with predatory grin. “... _wanna_ make a bet?”

Your mouth is hanging open. Like most of your conversations with Cartman, this one has gone completely off the rails in record time. Why the fuck not, you think. Might as well speak to him in his own language when he’s adamantly pretending not to understand yours (the language of sane human beings).

“Fine!” You poke him in the collar. “You’ve got until the end of the week to explain to me what love is, or I am _never talking to you again_. And I _mean_ it this time, Cartman.”

He looks pretty smug for someone who’s just made an incredibly bad deal. “ _Fine_. And if I win the bet -”

You snort. “What. You’re gonna make me suck your balls on live television?”

“Oh, no, no, _no_ Kyle. Nothing so childish or theatrical. I am a man of spartan needs these days. If I win the bet -” He curls a knuckle under your chin and tips your face up. “You have to kiss me.”

You frown. “Cartman...”

“In private, Kyle, don’t worry about your precious dignity. _Buuuuuut…_ ” He taps you on the tip of your nose. “- you have to _mean_ it.”

You duck your face down to hide the flush splotting across your cheekbones. It’s not embarrassment - it’s indignation. What does he think _meaning it_ feels like compared to literally anything else? Of course he thinks it’s something that a person can force themselves to do. _Typical_. “F-fine, whatever. Not like it’s ever gonna happen, so keep dreaming, fat ass.”

“Fine,” he shouts. “I will!”

“Fine!” you shout back.

“FINE!”

You glare at each other, fists clenched and chests heaving. You do that for a while, long enough that it diffuses your anger and starts to raise some questions. You furrow your brow. “Cartman...”

“Yes, _Kahl_?”

“Are you gonna leave or what?”

He waltzes past you and plants his ass directly onto the bench you were planning on using, because it’s the only one in the entire car not stained with what you’re pretty certain is the imprint of human entrails. “ _Fuck_ no,” he grunts. “Did you know that your precious eurotrash side-piece was warning everyone off this car, giving you the master bedroom like the little Jewish Princess you are?”

“He... what…?”

“Anyway, I’m not sleeping in one of the other cars with all the freaks and geeks. _I_ came up with the plan that saved everyone’s asses, so _I’m_ the one who deserves the royal treatment.”

You sense that this is one of those things that’s just not worth arguing about. You plop yourself down on the seat and squeeze into the corner, as far away from Cartman as you can get. “God, whatever. I don’t care. Just… shut up and let me sleep.”

Surprisingly, he shuts up. For a little bit at least. You fold into yourself: wrap your arms around your knees and try to gather all the warmth you can. It’s not enough. The temperature dropped well below 20 early in the day and the chill is starting to wind its way through the abandoned mall. You’re shivering so hard your teeth are chattering. 

You hear Cartman sigh longsufferingly. “Hey. C’mover here.”

You crack an eye open. “... why?”

“Because you look like you’re fucking freezing to death.”

“Pfft. What, are you gonna keep me warm with your blubber?”

“It’s muscle, and yeah.”

You turn over. “Yeah _right_.”

You feel Cartman grab your foot. Your eyes snap open in panic, but he’s being weirdly... gentle? Like the thing with the lip balm. You roll onto your elbows and stare at him as he slowly lifts your ankle and nuzzles his cheek against your boot. “ _Kaaaaahl_ ,” he drawls, waggling his eyebrows. There’s something about the way he turns your name into one syllable… like he’s saying it around a mouthful of gumballs. Like he’s _relishing_ it. He kisses the heel of your boot. “Come on, babe, let me keep you warm.”

You raise your eyes to the ceiling. “Ha… if only Mel Gibson could see you now, literally kissing the dirt off a filthy Jew’s boot.”

“Wow, Kyle, you just went from ‘frigid bitch’ to ‘naughty nazi roleplay’ faster than the speed of light. Mixed signals, much? You’re gonna give me whiplash here.”

You yank your leg free and mime kicking him in the face. But you are extremely cold, so - before he can lodge a protest about your boot making contact with his nose - you slide up against him and tuck yourself under his armpit.

“Uhhh…” he says breathily, even though this was his stupid idea.

You grab his wrist and wrap his arm around your shoulder. “Don’t think this is going to become a regular occurence. It’s a one time thing.”

He puffs out a shaky breath. “Jesus, Kyle, stop being such a tsundere.”

“Ugggh.” You bury your nose in Cartman’s jacket and grumble. “I’m going to fucking kill Craig when we get home.”

“Oh. Let me do it,” Cartman offers. “I’m already in the clink anyway. And Craig has it coming.”

Your automatic instinct is to correct him: the psych ward is not the same thing is prison. But then you remember…

“... I forgot to ask. How’s your mom doing?”

Cartman turns his head away, into the shadows of the cargo-overhang. “Whatever. She’s fine. They put her in sissy prison.”

You jostle his gut with your elbow. “She’s still in prison, fat ass. And she’s your mother. Have a little empathy.”

“Eh, Kyle - keep your pointy fucking elbows to yourself! I just said she’s fine. When I talked to her she actually seemed relieved. She was like -” and here, Cartman does a disturbingly pitch perfect impression of his mother. “ _Oh Eric, sweetie, it’s so nice to have someone take care of me for once_! I think our mortgage was overdrafted anyway.”

You look up. “You talked to her?”

“... yeah.”

Something ripples across his face. A moment of vulnerability that wibbles his lip and makes his eyes go glassy. It’s not a figment of your imagination - you fucking _saw_ it. Something genuine. Something real.

“Cartman… are _you_ okay?”

He laughs. “Are you kidding? This is the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me! I’m a free man now! I’m gonna grow a beard and buy an AR-15.”

“Actually, you’re a ward of the state until you’re eighteen.”

“Yeah, like any wussy foster home can stop me from doing what whatever the hell I want.”

“Sure. That worked out so well for you last time.”

“Kyle, why do you always have to ruin my hopes and dreams?”

“Try having better hopes and dreams if you don’t want me criticizing them.”

You feel a deep breath roll through his chest under your cheek. He tightens his arm around you in a way that feels like an unconscious reflex. You curl your hand over the rise of his stomach and keep it there.

“... mom’s sentence isn’t that harsh anyway,” he says quietly. “They’re already talking probation. I think they’re even going to let her out on Wednesday nights so we can keep going to our salsa lessons.”

Wait. What?

“Uh…” you blink at him. “ _Salsa lessons_?”

“Yeah. You -” Cartman swallows, like he’s just admitted something he shouldn’t have. “You… made such a big fucking deal about how you thought she was going to kill herself, so I made sure we starting doing all these dumb hobbies to keep her from tying a noose to the bannister. We’re dance partners in a salsa group in North Park, and we’re fucking killer at it, by the way. We won state regionals last month.”

You have to admit - you’re impressed that Cartman not only retained a conversation you’d had in the past for a non-blackmail related purpose, but seems to have internalized the advice. You just wish he hadn’t done it in such a… _Cartman_ way.

“Wow,” you whistle.

He shoots you a grin that shows his teeth _and_ his dimples. “Yeah, yeah, I know - nothing gets your pussy wetter than when I _‘behave like a real human being’_.”

“What? No - I was thinking about how creepy that sounded. You _seriously_ couldn’t find a more mother-son appropriate activity to do together?”

“Uh, uh, uh -” Cartman scolds, wagging a finger. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Kyle. You wanna talk creepy? You’re sixteen years old, yet I witnessed your mother tie your shoelaces not even three weeks ago.”

An embarrassing memory that you would rather not relive. “Okay but!” you protest. “The difference is that I didn’t ask her to do that.”

“Exactly! You see - when _my_ mom ties my shoes for me, it’s a _consensual exchange_ that expresses the power dynamics in our household. So, who’s in the creepy Jocasta-complex relationship now, hmmm?”

This is not the most disgusting you’ve heard come out of Cartman’s mouth, but it’s gotta rate up in the top twenty at least. “Why do I even try to have a sincere conversation with you? I already know how it’s going to end before it begins.”

“And _yet_ \- you can’t keep away.”

“Ha...” You yawn. “More like… I can’t… escape.”

The heat emanating from Cartman’s big, fat body is finally starting to do what it was supposed to do and warm you up. You begin to nod off, cheek nestled against the soft fabric of his cashmere scarf. In the muddy haze of half-sleep, you feel Cartman snake his hand under your hat to play with your hair.

“Don’t… touch my… hair…” you mumble, but you’re too tired to bat him away. He starts massaging your head through the tangles, tugging them loose with his fingers. That only pulls you deeper under the tide of unconsciousness. “If you… hate it, you…” you’re barely making sense now. “You… don’t get to…” _touch it_ , you can’t quite get out.

The last thing you hear before slipping into a deep sleep is him sighing: “Oh, _Kyle_ , if only you knew…”

The first thing you hear when you wake up is someone cocking an automatic rifle in your face. Your eyes snap open to see the barrel shoved right between your eyes.

What the _hell!?_ You yelp, and fly back against the wall. Two men in black suits sweep into the train car and try to grab you under the armpits. You twist against them, throw your arms out, kick at the air. The man with the rifle wheels it around and smacks you in the head with the butt.

You take a spill onto the floor, cheek first, vision reeling. The men grab your arms again and wrench them behind your back. You try to defend yourself, but even _you_ don’t have enough grit to fight back three grown men wrestling you into handcuffs.

“What the fuck is going on here?” you demand as they drag you out of the car and toss you on the ground. You’re getting so _sick_ of having to ask for clarification in life-threatening scenarios. The rest of the Resistance has already been dragged from their beds and hogtied in a similar fashion. 

“Well, well, Mister Broflovski...” - and Doctor Interchangeable-Face is here, with a whole squadron of armed men. Also, he's golf clapping. “I hope you enjoyed your little fit of teenage rebellion, because this time we’re going to lock you in a cell so far underground you’ll never see the sun again.”

“Oh, not this again.” You jiggle the chain of your handcuffs. They’re pulled as tight as they can go. “Look - I’m telling you, you’re _wrong_ about me. But if you honestly believe I have the power you need to fix your stupid machine, then I won’t fight. I’ll come willingly if you just let everyone else go.”

Doctor Smith chuckles. “I don’t think so. While your propensity for self-sacrifice is laudable, the Resistance has been a thorn in our side for a long time now. THE MACHINE has special plans for each and every one of them.”

You look around the room and take an inventory of your allies. Most of them are affixed with that stupid device they put on you back in Washington. The… Vertex Synthesizer? Kenny’s unconscious. Christophe is getting his face ground into the pavement by an FBI man’s boot. He makes eye contact with you across the station before getting kicked in the jaw.

Wait, there’s someone missing…

As if in response to your mental query, Cartman steps out from the shadows, arms crossed behind his back as he sways closer. He stops in front in you and puts both his index fingers in the air.

“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha, ha _ha_ ,” he sing-songs, “I tricked you and sold everyone out to the FBI!”

“You -” and you throw your entire body at him. “MotherFUCKER!”

An FBI man yanks you back before you can tear his throat out with your teeth.

Cartman jumps back a whole foot. _Yeah_ , you think, _you better be afraid of me_. “Woah, woah - Kyle, there’s no need to overreact.”

“You better hope they dissect me and put my brain in a jar, fat ass, because otherwise you’re fucking DEAD!”

He tsks. “Promises, promises. How many times have we done this song and dance before, and yet somehow I’m still alive? And you’re the one about to get locked away for the rest of your life. Face it, Kyle - I won.” 

Doctor Smith slides a Vertex Synthesizer out of his lab-coat and dangles it between thumb and forefinger. “This is what you get for standing against the American government. When will you _people_ ever learn?”

You actually see red. Truly and literally, the blood rushes in your head and casts a crimson glow over everything you see. “This is crazy!” you shout. “This entire situation is absurd? Can’t you see that? We’re _all_ Americans here -”

“I’m not,” Ugly Bob calls out.

“Okay, we’re all American here except for Ugly Bob! Surely we can come to some kind of compromise! We have more in common with each other than some stupid _Machine_. You’re allowing yourselves to be controlled by the kind of thoughts people express on social media, but the face that people show on the internet isn’t their best face! Our best face is the one we show each other in real life - the spirit of cooperation that builds nations rather than destroy them!”

You can see Christophe rolling his eyes at you from across the room, but your words seem to getting to the FBI agents, many of whom are lowering their weapons and shooting each other guilty looks. Even Doctor Assface seems to be reconsidering his life choices, staring into the middle distance while stroking his chin.

“Please. We can fix this. If you just let us go, we can -”

Cartman cuts you off with an exasperated sigh. “Seriously? You’re actually trying to give a speech right _now_?” He grabs the Vertex Synthesizer from the Doctor and stalks towards you.

“Don’t be an idiot, Cartman,” you growl. “You know that this is a bad deal even for you. Once they get what they want, they’ll put you in a camp because you know too much. Do you know what that means, fat ass? Hard labour, and no KFC ever again for the rest of your fucking _life_.”

“Uh, uh, Kyle - that won’t work on me.” He lowers the crown of the Synthesizer over your head. “I’m immune to your charms.”

“Hah!” you bark in his face. “That’s not what you said last night.”

You jerk your head to the size, but the Vertex Synthesizer clicks into place and sends a shock of electricity straight down your spine. Already you can feel it affecting you - scattering your thoughts, humming at the back of your skull. Cartman slides his hands around your cheeks and cradles your face in his palms.

“ _Dasvidaniya, darling_ ,” he whispers, and kisses you on the forehead. “I tried to be nice, Kyle. Maybe you should have tried too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Cartman's Canada Concert Playlist:**   
>  [That Don't Impress Me Much](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqFLXayD6e8)   
>  [After The Rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qr-zrhE7Yg)   
>  [The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A)   
>  [Call Me Maybe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic)   
>  [One Week](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC_q9KPczAg)
> 
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> 
> While it sometimes takes me a while to respond to reviews, I do treasure each and every one of them. <3
> 
> find me at: https://dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com/


	8. Tikkun Olam (And Other Life Philosophies White People Love To Appropriate)

What happened next was that...

_ Cartman gets escorted off the premises, humming triumphantly. Your eyes follow him the whole way up the escalator. _

_It’s all shapes and sounds and ~~you~~ -_

What Kyle remembers seeing is:

_Kenny - apparently faking unconsciousness - crawls towards Christophe. Your eyes go wide for a half second, but you pull it back, swallow your shocked reaction. Instead, you glare straight at Doctor Smith as he rambles about “the ultimate evolution of the Patriot Act” this and “the undefeatable superiority of private industry tech” that. You’re sick of hearing his voice, and also you need to create a distraction, so you spit directly into his face._

_Your saliva hits the left panel of his horn-rimmed glasses and it’s like all the air sucks out of the subway station. The room goes completely silent as he slowly removes his spectacles and wipes them down on the hemline of his lab-coat. When they’re back on his face, he gestures, casually, to one of the armed men standing astride you. Then man shoulders his gun, then reels back and smacks you hard with the back of his hand._

_Your head snaps to one side so fast it cracks the joints in your neck. But it was worth it: before any of the FBI men realize what’s happening, Kenny’s already picked Christophe’s handcuffs open. That’s the signal: on the other side of the station, Keyvan - robes already torn open from the volley of bullets raining out of his back - pops to his feet, firing his AK-47 at the ceiling to dislodge chunks of the moldering slate._

_That’s when hell really breaks loose. What happens next is -_

What… what happens next is -

_It’s all sounds and shapes; Doctor Smith’s armed men grab you under the armpits. They drag you away just in time to see Christophe diving for his rifle and Kenny getting riddled with about two hundred bullets._ You -

~~You…~~

“... n the morning, you’ll be transferred via armoured car to our research facility just outside D.C.,” Doctor Smith is saying.

Kyle isn’t really listening. Instead, he’s staring at his hands. At the stains Kenny’s blood is making on the lapels of his winter coat. Kenny sacrificed himself trying to save you, Kyle is telling himself, and what was it all worth? 

_Don’t worry about Kenny_ , something is scratching at the back of his head, which is… 

_(Why would ~~you~~ ever think such a horrible thought? _

_~~You~~ wouldn’t, so there’s something else that -)_

The Vertex Synthesizer goes off and sends a shock bouncing down Kyle’s spine. He bites back a hiss of pain. Doctor Smith, oblivious, keeps monologuing. He’s walking the length of the room, waving one hand about as he pontificates. Kyle was blindfolded on his way in here but he’s pretty sure that they’ve locked him in a goddamn bank vault, which seems a little excessive even if what they say about him is true.

“- you’ll come to find that THE MACHINE is a good and forgiving Master. It governs far more wisely than the Senate ever did. If you had cooperated in the first place, we could have made you a social media superstar. A life of fame and leisure is still on the table, Mr. Broflovski. All you have to do is say ‘yes’. Otherwise you could end up, as you so charmingly put it, nothing more than a brain in a jar.”

Kyle nods numbly, rubbing the skin around the metal crown of the Synthesizer. It’s on so fucking tight he can’t even get a fingernail up under it. He remembers what Christophe said about it being equipped with a bomb.

They say that the greatest duty of a POW is to try to escape, but how is anyone supposed to do that when there’s a chance of their head getting blown off and, oh yeah, they just watched one of their best friends get mowed down via automatic rifle? Shit like that is probably why the US military can count the number of prison camp escapees during the Vietnam War on two hands.

Another fact Kyle only knows because it was told to him by -

“Cartman,” he whispers.

Doctor Smith stops his pacing and looms over Kyle. He casts a dark shadow in an even darker space. The only bit of light on him at all is what's reflected off his glasses. “What was that, Mr. Broflovski?”

Kyle grinds his molars. “Nothing.”

The good Doctor leers over the rims of his spectacles for a moment, stroking his chin. It’s hard to tell if he’s seeing exactly what he wants, or nothing at all. Either way, Kyle plays polite and keeps his eyes trained on the far wall.

Finally, Doctor Smith pulls back with a sigh. He pats Kyle on the head and lets out an nasty chuckle. “Enjoy your last night as a citizen of the United States, Kyle Broflovski. Starting tomorrow, you’re nothing more than research material.”

The vault door slams behind him.

Kyle keeps staring at the far wall. He’s got no weapons. No tools. No allies. No fucking energy. He has nothing, except -

He shuts his eyes, and remembers what Doctor Smith said the first time they met:

_“You’re a level 10 Cerebrokinetic with latent - but unexpressed - secondary Telekinesis…”_

Telekinesis means something tangible. Something _physical_. Destructive.

The only thing Kyle has left is to give up and believe the unbelievable. He’s dead either way, and if the unbelievable is true, it’s better that he die here from a bomb to the skull than to be allowed anywhere near the US Administration’s dictatorial comment aggregator. 

The way to activate it is...

_“... you are able to manipulatively alter reality... when experiencing a suitably powerful emotion like...”_

Like _anger_.

Easy enough. There’s a million things to be pissed off about in the year 2024 under the Garrison administration. Kyle thinks about the level of dispassionate detachment on Christophe’s face when he blew out that Canadian man’s knee, and the Vertex Synthesizer starts to vibrate. He’s mad at himself for letting that go so easily, too. Is that who you want to be, he asks himself, someone who just forgives monstrous acts of calculated violence in exchange for a passable blow job? Jesus fucking christ. Even worse than that is that Christophe -

_… diving for his rifle, Kenny getting riddled with about two hundred bullets._

\- even worse than _that_ is the fact that the moron probably went and got himself killed, so awesome. Great. There’s a plot thread that’s never gonna get resolved.

The Synthesizer begins to make noises, like popcaps getting ground into the pavement. It’s daggers behind Kyle’s eyes, but he digs his nails into his his thighs and keeps dwelling. About his dad’s dumb little internet games and the way he sometimes gives Kyle and Ike this _look_ over mom’s shoulder when she’s kissing him on the cheek, like he’s the victor in the whole scenario, like his sons don’t basically own his whole entire dick and balls. 

_Zzzppttz_.

 _There_ it is. A jolt so potent it makes Kyle accidentally bite his tongue. He can feel his hair frizzing up, snapping at the edges like what happens when you accidentally get a bit of it caught on fire. He hops off the cot and begins pacing the circumference of the room in tight, furious circles, rattling the lock-boxes all along the wall as he skims past them.

Doctor Smith wants to turn him into a polite, little brain in a jar, huh? Craves cooperation so absolute that he wants to turn the whole country into polite little jarred brains too? Kyle wonders how much Doctor Smith will like the idea of disembodied brains once he sees his own grey matter smeared across some uncooperative teen’s fucking _fist_ -

_Because that’s what you’re gonna do, put your fist right through his -_

Electricity snaps in a clear, violet arc between the two contact points on the Synthesizer’s crown. So strong that Kyle nearly blacks out when it courses between his temples. But he hears something rattling inside. Smells something burning. He crashes against the wall, bracing himself with one palm and wrapping the other around the side of the Synthesizer. This is it: either it’s gonna fry his brain, or malfunction. Just gotta push it a bit more.

So Kyle starts listing the people on his shit list out loud: “Christophe,” who he quite likes, but desrves a stern talking to. “Doctor F-Fuckface,” who can honestly trip head first down a flight of stairs and sever his spine from his cerebral cortex. “The _‘Machine’_. Mr Garrison, dad, every member of the fucking Kardashian family, the Colorado governor…” who’d refused to let Canadian refugees into the state during a particularly harsh winter, leaving them to freeze to death in the mountains. Kyle just starts listing the name of every politician he can think of.

He digs for stupider grudges: Craig, for spreading that ‘tsundere’ joke to every goddamn person in the eleventh grade, Dr. Pradesh for setting off a series of encounters that have forced him admit multiple times out loud that he’s had sustained sexual contact with Eric Cartman. Terrance Mephisto, who still guns for Kyle at every science fair despite Kyle having not won a single one of those since third grade. Terrance honest to God thinks that he and Kyle are rivals, but… _but_ -

This is starting to remind Kyle of that whole mess at the end of the first American-Canadian war, with Satan and Saddam Hussein, him and Stan egging Cartman on to redirect the energy in that stupid anti-swearing chip they put in his head...

 _Cartman_ \- there’s a knot Kyle was just waiting to unspool. The Vertex Synthesizer is snapping and humming now.

_Sizzle, crack._

And Cartman, the moment Kyle gets out of here, is going to get the freaking beating of a lifetime.

_Pop, szzzzZZZT._

What’s crazy - like, truly, astonishing, fucked up crazy - is that of the infinite catalogue of Cartman related bullshit that Kyle keeps filed away in alphabetic order at the bottom of his skull -

_sssZZZZHHHT, CRACK._

\- the thing that pisses him off _most_ is: the memory of Cartman’s fingers, gently twining through his hair the night before.

_CR AA ZZZZZ CK FFFFZZZZZSSTTTT -_

_“Oh Kyle, if only you knew.”_ The thing Kyle, teeth grinding so hard they could crack, _knows_ is that he’s -

_ZKRRZZZZZZT --_

\- gonna pound the fat ass’s face in until it’s mush on the cement.

_ZZZZZZZSHHHHKZZZ -_

_**You’re gonna choke him until his fucking eyes pop out.** _

_SNAP._

_Everything goes dead quiet. The lock-boxes are straining in their chambers, the metal warping wherever Kyle's palm ghosts over it. The pain that shoots through his head is like an elastic band being pulled taut until it snaps. After that, there’s nothing except a distance ache that -_

Your vision flickering, going dark at the edges, seeing in double, in black and white, in every colour of the spectrum at the same time. It’s so overwhelming, that you -

_Kyle staggers away from the wall, steadies himself long enough to wipe the blood out of his nostril, then falls flat on on his back._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Everything around you is blindingly white._

_It takes a moment for you to ground yourself in your surroundings, mostly because you have no idea where the fuck you are. It’s not just white because your eyes haven’t adjusted to the light , it’s white because -_

There is absolutely nothing here.

You look over your shoulder.

Your shadow extends into the horizon forever. You hold your hands up to your face and find that they’re hazy, translucent, bleeding light. You try to touch your wrist, but you fingers ghost straight through it.

“What the hell?”

_This is familiar somehow, but you can’t quite put your finger on -_

Someone calls your name.

\- a voice you’d know anywhere, even when it calls to you from three directions, pitch vibrating wildly between “childish” and “post puberty”, out of synch with the linear progression of time.

You try to turn and greet Stan, but you’re rooted in place. When you look down, you’re way closer to your feet than you remember being in a long time and wearing your old winter coat.

Stan asks you:

“You’re still thinking about this exchange, aren’t you?” he says when you don’t answer. He sounds tired, prematurely world-weary. He’s sounded that way for a long time.

“Of course I am,” you reply in your own ten-year old voice. It’s as squeaky as you remember it being. “I was a huge dick to you that afternoon.”

“You’re kind of always a huge dick,” Stan replies. “It’s one of your best qualities. I don’t mind when you’re a dick. It’s you being a douche that I can’t stand.”

You frown. “I don’t understand the difference.”

“Okay. For example: you’re being a dick when you tell me to go to therapy every time I complain about my parents. You’re being a _douche_ when you get all long suffering and act like I’m asking you to make it your responsibility when I don't.”

“I dunno, Stan, that sounds like semantics to me.”

“See, that was you being a huge dick. What was douchey was when you said -”

You press your eyes shut and whisper it: “Here’s the problem: this conversation started because you were worried about me, and now we’re... somehow talking about you.”

“Yeah. That was the worst. So, Kyle: this time, let’s talk about you.”

When your eyes peel open, you’re back on the sidewalk between your house and Stan’s. Late April, tenth grade. You can feel him at your back, shimmering bright and indistinct around the edges. The neighbourhood around you is like a black-and-white film reel: monochrome, flickering, so still that you can’t hear the wind whistling down from the mountains.

“You said the wrong thing here. Now’s your chance to say all the stuff you wanted to.”

Of course. You take a deep breath. “My dad was the one behind Skankhunt.”

Stan waits a few moments to reply to that, but he doesn’t seem surprised. “Huh,” he says. “That makes sense. What else?”

“I feel like I’m fucking losing my mind. Every day, a little bit at a time. All the things I used to have faith in have crumbled from the foundation up. I don’t know how you can get up every morning when you don’t have something _bigger_ than yourself to believe in. Stan, how do you do it?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t.”

“But you do. I give you shit all the time, but if I were like you, I’d have -” You bite the inside of your mouth to stop yourself from saying it.

“What? Killed yourself?”

“Stan, I didn’t mean -”

“Kyle, shut up for a second. Listen: you always accuse me of self sabotaging, but you’re the one who’s never happy. You set your goals way too high, especially for yourself. Of course the world was never going to live up to the standards you set for it.”

“I usually reach my own goals, though.” It’s true: you’ve only gotten a single ‘B’ in your entire life.

“What, so the entire population of earth has to keep up with you or you’ll be having this stupid existential crisis of faith until the end of time? That’s the douchiest thing I’ve heard you say in a while. See - this is why you wouldn’t have killed yourself. You’re just not that kind of person. You might have killed someone else, though.”

“I’m already planning on it,” you mutter, flexing your fists. Stan sighs.

“C’mon. There was one more thing you wanted to tell me that day.”

You raise your eyes to the black-and-white sky. “I’m… _kind of_ fucking Cartman. Not full fucking though. It’s like…” you cast around for an explanation that doesn’t sound too bonkers. “Bro jobs?”

“Jesus Christ, Kyle, don’t remind me about bro jobs.”

“Sorry. You know I hate suffering alone.”

Stan snorts. “Dude, don’t lie. You love suffering alone - you just like to have an audience when you do it.”

Damn. You actually shudder, those words are so precisely aimed. When you speak, your voice is quivering and you have to sniff back tears. “Okay, Stan, _now_ who’s being mean.”

“It’s still you, because I’m not really here,” he says, and then you’re standing alone in empty space again.

“Cool. Thanks.” You’re talking to your own brain in a very small voice. You can feel it vibrating between the particles in your body. “You’ve really been on a roll lately. Goddamnit, when is the last time you’ve managed to generate a positive thought on your own? Or made a single good decision?”

There’s no answer. What were you expecting? You shut your eyes and let out a shaky breath. A chill starts to crawl over your shoulder. It grips you tight. “I’d like to wake up now…” you murmur.

Still, nothing. You realize, slowly and disconcertingly, that the chill clinging to you isn’t some metaphorical thing or even a psychosomatic physical reaction. Something is literally holding on to you. You slit one eye open only to be greeted by: two skeletal hands wrapped around your arm and a dozen fresh wounds oozing blood onto the substanceless ground beneath you.

“Ack!” you shriek, and not manfully.

“Calm down,” Kenny says, voice distorted by his scarf, and also by all the gaping wounds in his head. “Long time no see,” he adds, then laughs.

“Wh-what?”

“I didn’t think I’d see you until we got home.”

“Uh.” You can’t stop looking at where Kenny’s left eye is blown open. The hole goes clear through his skull; you can see out the other side. 

He stares at you, serenely.

“Kenny are you… really here?”

“No, I'm the Grim Reaper.”

“C'mon be serious…” you yank your arm away so that you can gesture as you talk. “Is this a fevered guilt hallucination like that conversation I just had with Stan, or am I literally talking to you while you’re… I dunno, floating around on the way back to your body?”

Kenny tips his head to one side and adjusts his scarf. 

“Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty stupid question, huh? If I’m hallucinating that it’s literally you, then you’ll just say that it’s literally you. But I have a hard time believing that even a hallucination version of you would lie to me that bad.”

“I won’t say anything either way then,” he says.

“Thanks. And if it is literally you, let’s... not talk about this when we see each other again. I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to cope with any of this when I wake up.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I…” you raise your shoulders. The ghost of Kenny’s skeletal hand is lingering like a head-cold. “I… don’t know what I want. That’s been the problem this whole time. I don’t understand the world anymore, and because of that I just… don’t fucking understand myself anymore either.”

“It seems like you’re back on track now. You have something to focus on.”

You shut your eyes and nod. “Right. Get the fuck out of here. Kill Cartman. But - after that, what happens?”

“Does anything need to happen after that?”

You don’t reply immediately. You think about your conversation with fake-Stan and what he said about you not letting yourself be happy. “I know so much now. The Resistance, the Machine… It doesn’t matter if I was dragged into it against my will: I’m a part of it now. What kind of asshole would walk away without trying their absolute best to do something about it?”

Kenny just stares at you.

“Do I... sound like a total douche right now?”

He breaks eye contact to roll his eyes.

“Yeah. Stan just called me a douche too. Well, not real Stan. The version of Stan that lives in my head, compiled from composite memories I guess. But he was spot on. He’d tell me - real Stan, I mean - that none of it was my responsibility. But you know what is my responsibility?” You take a deep breath. “ _Cartman_.”

Kenny is obviously frowning under the layers of fabric.

“What? You don’t think it’s true?”

“I’m not even a part of this conversation right now. Why does what I think matter when you’re just using me as a sounding board, as usual?”

“Hey, I don’t -”

“ _You_ think it’s true, don’t you?”

Absently, you run your thumb over your lower lip. In this ephemeral dreamspace, it comes away tasting like medicated lip balm. “It is true,” you say, voice firm. “He’ll just keep going on like this forever if I don’t do something. I know that. I’ve always known that eventually I would be the one who had to stop him. And I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks about that. I’m sick of other people telling me what to think about our relationship, and what I should and shouldn’t do about it! The only people in the world who _really_ know what’s gone down between the two of us is me, and him. And he’s not a reliable eyewitness.”

“You need to be the one to put him down, then?”

“Yeah.” You look at your palms. “With my bare hands.”

“Well,” Kenny shrugs. “Good luck with that.”

You raise an eyebrow at his disaffected tone, but it seems like he meant it sincerely despite the set of his shoulders implying he has no real opinion on the matter. That’s fine; there’s something else you’ve been meaning to ask him this whole time.

“You know, I’ve been thinking… Ike told me, back when this all started, that you were gonna explain what the hell was going on once you found me. But you haven’t told me shit.”

Kenny sticks a finger into one of his wounds and pries a bullet out. “You weren’t ready to hear it,” he says, flicking the bloody piece of metal away and starting in on another.

“I’m ready now.”

Kenny hums in agreement. You wait for him to dig a couple more bullets out of his body. When he’s finished, he throws an arm around your shoulder and fans his hand out. An image of Toronto’s ruined skyline rises in front of you

“This is what you think about, right? What you said to Mr. Garrison that made him decide to do this?”

“Yeah, Kenny, it’s kind of hard to forget inciting a series of disastrous foreign policy decisions that resulted in the destruction of an entire country.”

“But you didn’t actually tell him to do it, did you?”

“I might as well have.”

Kenny sighs, frustrated. “Kyle, take your head out of your own ass for a second and listen to what I’m saying. I told you already: there’s another world that sleeps beneath ours. Sometimes people are born with the power to tap into that world. But that world isn’t on our side. If you have no idea what you’re doing, it will twist your intentions into the worst possible form of themselves.”

You shoot him a sidelong glance. “Hold up - is this about fucking _Cthulhu_?”

“Not… specifically. Look, I’m not going to waste my time explaining stuff you might not remember or believe. If you want to know more, ask me about it when you get home. Until then…” Kenny lowers his hand and Toronto descends into the white horizon. “All you need to know is this: if you believe in your powers - if you accept them - then you can make them do what you want them to do.”

“Okay, then… how do I wake up?”

Kenny looks at you for a couple seconds. More than a couple seconds, probably. Time gets weird when you have nothing to compare it against; he might be staring at you for whole minutes. Finally, he digs a crinkled cigarette out of his pocket and lights it: “I dunno, dude. It’s your fucking head. 

You flatten your lips. Great.

Kenny takes a pointless drag off his dream-cigarette, but there’s something wrong with his hands. They’re disappearing, turning into vapor at the tips.

“Oh -” he blinks in surprise. His face is beginning to peel back to show the bones beneath. “Looks like I’m about to wake up. See you back in South Park, Kyle.” He waves goodbye as his voice fades. “Give Eric a few kicks to the balls for me before you kill him.”

You watch Kenny dissolve into mist, brow furrowed. That really was him, wasn’t it? Does that mean you’re dead too? Blood and guts splayed all over that bank vault, your brains painting the wall? You check yourself over again, like that’s going to confirm anything either way. 

It sure is _your_ fucking head.

What was it Christophe said, that first day on the road? Something about how Sartre said _‘hell is other people’_ , but that’s only true if it turns out you’re an asshole? You’ve been feeling that one pretty hard lately. You got here by “frothing yourself into a tizzy”, but the clear, sizzling thread of anger that put you down here isn’t enough to pull you back out.

Kenny’s right: you have to accept it. Your _only recourse_ is to believe the unbelievable. The problem is now that you’re here contemplating it, you realize that your persistent, pedantic mental block has had nothing to do with logic. You’ve seen so much shit in your life that, yeah okay, the idea that you might be a psychic isn’t _that_ weird, all things considered. The problem is that… if it’s true, then...

Then what are you supposed to _do_ with it? What are you supposed to think about the things that you’ve already done with it? What kind of person does that make you?

Someone touches your shoulder. The grip is warm this time. Comforting. You close your eyes and inhale through your nose; for a moment, you smell your mother’s perfume. The fancy shampoo she always uses to help straighten her hair.

Then you hear her voice.

“Ma?”

She’s right there, wearing her nightgown and a pair of slippers. She wraps both arms around you and squeezes tight.

“Oh God,” you mutter, nose mashed into her shoulder. “- _please_ tell me this is a hallucination and you didn’t get yourself killed by the FBI after all.”

“Oh, you boys and your imagination!” she laughs. “It’s always one thing after another with you!”

“I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

She eases back and cups your face in her hands. “Listen, young man. We’ve been very worried about you. But don’t think that you’re going to get out of this without getting an earful! I’ve told you a hundred times that if you take off on some supernatural adventure, you’re to call home before dark and let us know where you are!”

You sigh and shut your eyes. “I kind of got kidnapped by the government, Ma. I haven’t exactly had a chance to call home.”

She clicks her tongue. “That’s no excuse!”

“I know, I’m sorry,” you intone automatically, even though this isn’t actually your mother.

“You can apologize later by cleaning out the garage like you promised. But we’ll talk about that when you get home. I know that isn’t what you need to hear right now.” She squishes your face. “Listen to me very carefully, Kyle. I have something important to tell you.”

When you open your eyes, you’re eight years old again, and you’ve just found out that Ike is adopted.

 _“You see, bubbe...”_ Your mom is explaining something you were way too young to understand at the time. _“You father and I tried for a very long to have a child before you and it never worked out. It almost didn’t work out with you. I got very, very sick when I was pregnant, and because of that, you were very sick when you were born too. That’s why, the next time we wanted a child, we decided to adopt. It’s a miracle we have you, Kyle. Your baby brother is a different kind of miracle.”_

She’s being diplomatic about what, exactly, went wrong with the pregnancy, but your dad was _far_ more explicit about how close you were to biting it those first few weeks the last time a routine ear infection landed you in the hospital for most of christmas break.

_“The Doctors were afraid you would be sick forever, but I knew the moment I saw you that you’d be fine. My sister is always on my case about how I let you run wild all the time. She says that you’re such a serious, delicate boy and I should be more careful with you. I swear, she’d make me put you in a plastic bubble if she could.”_

Yeah, that sounds about right; you spent a summer in New York at your aunt’s place two years ago and you’d describe her relationship with your cousin - _politely_ \- as Munchausen’s-by-proxy. You’ll never call your mom “overprotective” again.

_“But I told her that’s all meshuggeneh. Other people might not see it, but I know the truth.”_

_“You’re a fighter, Kyle. You were a fighter even before you were born.”_

_So -_

_\- fi -_

_\- your back is ice cold, your chest is on fire. You struggle to open your eyes. Your vision is fragmented, red at the edges. Above you, you see -_

_Cartman’s tear-stained face blistering into focus -_

Oh no, not this again.

If there’s any unholy triad of humiliating things you’d love to have scrubbed straight out of your grey matter, it’s: Imaginationland, Manbearpig, and Cartman saving your life.

Just like in your memory of this sorry event, his tears are dripping all over your face and you’re too weak to wipe them away. They pool in the dip between your nose and your right eye, and they stay there - soaking into your pores as faster than they can evaporate. It feels like you always imagined dimethylmercury would feel if you got it on your skin. A drop of it won’t kill you immediately, but there’s no way to get the poison out once it touches you and eventually it’ll turn lethal. 

It makes you feel _filthy_. And not because of that dumb ball-sucking bet.

See - you think about this _kind of a lot_ , because it should have been the final nail in the coffin for you being able to take Cartman at his word - or his deed for that matter. This is what should have taught you that Cartman is categorically, _pathologically_ incapable of sincerity. But you keep falling for it: getting your hopes up, looking for chinks in the armor, overinterpreting the way his lip wibbles the same as you accused him over overintimating everything you’ve ever said or done to him. Because if he can change, that means -

 _That means_ -

You’re not just gonna kill him for betraying you. You’re going to kill him for making you fucking _feel this way_.

Shaking all over, you raise your hand and struggle to say his name.

You’re back in the void. There’s someone else here. The way you know this is because there’s a second shadow lying alongside yours, racing towards the non-existent horizon.

You wheel around to see yourself, at nine years old, waving hello with a huge grin on his face.

Uh. Well, this is weird.

You raise your palm and wave back.

“I can’t believe this happens to me more than once!” nine year old you says.

You stare at him, dumbly, hand still in the air. “I’m sorry... _what_ happens more than once?”

“Transcending the bounds of corporeal existence by reading too much philosophy. That’s how I got here at least. What happened to you?”

Oh, right. _That_. “I…” you run a hand through your hair, less confused, but still at a loss for words. “Uh, I got… really, really pissed off about something.”

“Oh man,” his eyes go as round as they can. “That’s all it takes?”

“N-no, there’s some pretty complicated extrenuating circumstances involved, which I can’t exactly - hey, wait.” You slice a hand through the air. It trails disjointed, neon fractures of light behind it. “If we’re meeting like this, why don’t I remember speaking to my older self?”

“Well,” your younger self taps his chin thoughtfully. “The book on string theory I was just reading says that there are infinite potential realities created every time we open our mouths, or put our shoes on, or do anything, really. So I guess that the reality we’re talking in right now isn’t the one where I get back to my body. Or maybe you’re not the me that got to remember this conversation.”

You purse your lips and ponder that for a second. To be honest, you feel a bit dumb having to ask a younger version of yourself such a simple question about probability. It’s a been a long time since you’ve thought about transcendental quantum mechanics. “So we’re _not_ creating a time paradox by meeting like this.”

“Not in your timeline at least. It might totally fuck mine up, which is fine, because we just got in deep shit with the tooth mafia.”

“Right, I almost forgot about the tooth mafia. Kinda weird that there’s more than one timeline where we got caught up in that very specific tooth-fairy-related money laundering scheme, huh?”

“Not really,” nine-year-old-you says, a bit sadly. “The truth is that across all of time and space, there’s probably not that much variation between chronologically parallel dimensions. It’s likely that most timelines are identical apart from minor details.”

That is pretty sad. “Guess there’s no chance of us transitioning to that timeline where Mr. Garrison didn’t become president Liberals are always fantasizing about,” you murmur. Let alone a timeline where you never gave Cartman a second, third, fourth and five hundredth chance.

“Wait, _Mr. Garrison_ became President? What the fuck, dude.”

“Never mind that.” You duck down and grab your nine-year-old-self by the shoulders. “Look. You have to promise to do something for me once you go back to your own timeline. It’ll save you a _lot_ of grief down the road.”

You stare at yourself. He stares back, placid expression getting strained. His nervous smile is sporting three huge gaps where he's just lost the last of his baby teeth. In two weeks he’s going to nearly die from kidney failure. “Uhhh… s-sure?”

“You have to promise that you will never, _ever_ -” You shake him. “- no matter what happens - allow yourself to feel even a _hint_ of pity, empathy or care for Eric Cartman. Not even once. Not even if you catch him crying, or learn fucked up shit about his home life. Not even if he says the exact right thing to you, the thing you’ve been wanting to hear. Any feeling of fondness that wells up inside of you, any stray tug on your heartstrings - fucking _murder_ it.”

“Ha ha, what the fuck?” Younger-you laughs, high and airy. The anxious grin has turned rictus. “Why the _fuck_ would I ever _care_ about Cartman? I fucking hate Cartman.” The confusion on his face is achingly, utterly and authentically genuine. You wonder how you’ve gotten so far away from where you started. “Hold on - in the future do I… _like_ Cartman?”

You gaze into the distance, eyes unfocused. Your throat is still bruised on the inside.“It’s worse that than,” you say softly. Deeper than that. If you only _liked_ him, things would be so much easier. You like Stan and Kenny. You liked Heidi. You even kinda like Christophe. With Cartman… “When I wake up, I’m going to kill him.”

That diffuses the tension. For nine-year-old Kyle that is, not for you. “Oh, sweet,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief that sounds like someone stepping on a rubber ducky in slow motion. “What’d he do this time?”

You stand and make a fist so tight your knuckles crack. “It’d take me an infinite number of hours to explain the amount of bullshit that’s led me to this decision and while we - theoretically - have that, most of it will probably just make you lose respect for yourself.”

“Uh?”

“But, most recently: he sold me and my friends out to a mad scientist who wants to put my brain in a jar and use it to take over the world.”

“Holy shit, dude. That fucking sucks.”

“It really does. I have a plan to get out of here, but it’s dependent on me waking the fuck up. And I have no idea how to do that.”

“You don’t know how to wake up?”

You blink at yourself in confusion. “Um… you do?”

He blinks back, like you’re a fucking moron. “Of course. It’s obvious! Geeze, it really _is_ true that our brains deteriorate when we get older.”

Your face falls. The unfettered, condescending confidence with which third grade Kyle starts laughing at you reminds you a little of the aura Ike’s been growing into lately. Too many A+’s definitely go to the head. “Wow,” you grimace. “Stan was right. I really am a douche.”

Nine-year-old Kyle pokes you in the stomach. “Look, grandpa, do you want me to tell you how to get back to your reality or not?”

“Fine, fine - go on.”

Younger-you raises his hands, making meditation circles with his fingers. He shuts his eyes, looking so smug it’s almost beatific, and says: “The basis of all reasoning is the mind’s awareness of itself, remember? And right now, you’re super aware of yourself. Maybe more aware than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”

“Er… I guess?”

“No, you’re not getting it. You don’t _guess_ \- you know! External observation is subjective, but internal observation is immutable. If we think of the people and objects that we interact with as actors who come on and off a stage, then consciousness is the stage itself. Right now, your stage is empty. All you have to do to wake up is walk back onto it. Think of it like this:” Nine-year-old Kyle opens his eyes and walks two fingers across his palm to demonstrate. “This is a story, and you can put yourself back in the narrative.”

“Oh,” you say. “Yeah. That’s right.”

You do that.

_Kyle wakes up in the bank vault: sprawled out on the floor, head ringing, disorientated. He holds his hands in front of his face and finds that they’re translucent. He can see straight through them. _

_Before the matter in his body solidifies, he grabs the Vertex Synthesizer and -_

Okay, so that happened. It wasn't anywhere in the same neighborhood as what you were _trying_ to do, but you still ended up exactly where you need to be.

You drag yourself to your feet and kick the Synthesizer across the room. The noise it makes when it hits the wall is so satisfying you kick your cot over too, and keep kicking it. Not because you’re still pissed off - which you are - but because you need to make as much noise as possible to get out of here. You know there’s at least one guard outside, because you saw him when Doctor Smith opened the vault.

“Hey!” you shout, so loud it strains your bruised vocal chords. “I need to talk to someone!”

No answer. The walls are thick, possibly soundproofed. You struggle to drag the cot towards the entrance, swinging it in a pathetic, little half-arc so that is smashes against the security bars. You sprain a shoulder in the process, but the clang of metal on metal echoes through the room for whole seconds afterwards.

“Can you hear me out there! I need to take a piss!”

Nothing. You pound your fists on the door, above the crank holding it closed. “I’m serious! If no one comes in here to check on me I’m going to piss all over the walls and then you'll have to clean it up!” _Pound, clang_. “I might even kill myself! You hear that!” _Clang, pound, pound_. “I’m going to commit suicide unless you take me to a goddamn toilet!”

Still nothing. You fall back against the door to catch your breath, mind buzzing. The vault is _definitely_ soundproofed, sealed so tight it’s practically a fucking vacuum. The air is stale and thin and you’re dizzy just from two minutes of shouting your head off. Fuck, _fuck_.

You run your hands down the length of your coat and pause when you feel something heavy in one of your pockets. Holy shit, it can’t be...

You stop breathing for a moment as you slide your hand into the pocket. Your fingers wrap around a smooth, metal cylinder; it’s the detonator, the one Christophe slipped in your pocket a little over twelve hours ago. How the hell did your captors miss that? _Cartman_ knew you had it on you. Did he just forget? Jesus, what a fucking moron. Your hands are shaking when you pull it out of your pocket. If they didn’t know about this, chances are they don’t know about -

You squeeze your eyes shut and press the button.

You don’t hear anything, but you can feel it - a low rumble that vibrates through the floor and clatters all the lockboxes in their cells. Flakes of plaster rain down from the ceiling. Sure enough, the gears in the vault door begin to groan under your back. You scramble away from the door, shoving the used detonator in your pocket.

Pale light floods in around the guard. He’s a big guy: about thirty, looks like he’s into crossfit. There’s a cybernetic implant covering half his face and he’s carrying an M4 carbine rifle, which is a pretty shitty gun in CoD but - as you’ve recently witnessed - is extremely effective in real life.

You swallow a lump down your throat when his glowing, red eye zeros in on you. “Are you okay?” he asks mechanically.

“Uh. I… need to take a piss,” you answer, voice hoarse.

His eye whirrs some more. “I’ll get you a pepsi bottle.”

“Wait -” you run after him and grab his arm before he can seal you in again. He spins around so fast that it nearly knocks you off your feet. You don’t let go. “I… I want to go to washroom. I want to… use an actual toilet.”

“The plumbing in this city hasn’t worked for nearly a decade,” he says. “So I don’t see the difference.”

“The difference is pretty obvious, dude. Pissing in a bottle is gross. It makes me feel like I’m some basement-dwelling neckbeard.”

The guard shakes his head. “Unfortunately there’s been a security breach on the perimetre, so I can’t let you out of your cell until the issue has been investigated.”

It’s not working. You bite the inside of your mouth and think about -

_Cartman calling you a harlot in front of several dozen strangers, the look on his face when he ground a gun into your stomach and threatened to murder you, the fact that he thought you’d ever accept an apology for something like that. The fact that you di -_

“Listen, this isn’t just about the literal place where I take a piss. This is about basic human dignity. I know that your job is difficult, and you’ve been trained to stop viewing other humans as individuals with thoughts and feelings that matter. I know that you’ve been trained to stop thinking of yourself that way too, and I think that’s wrong. There has to be a better way to keep the peace that to keep turning entire generations of young, able-bodied men into pseudo-sociopaths. Our justice system doesn’t have to be solely punitive - it could be cooperative, _restorative_. I mean, isn’t that what’s wrong with America right now? That we’re all asking each other to piss in bottles when we should be sharing the washroom? This country is like a public urinal - the more respect we have for it and each other, the less disgusting it will become.”

The implants pull the guard's skin so tight he looks like a Hollywood socialite after a botched botox injection, but you notice tears beading at the corner of his flesh-and-blood eye. Fucking seriously? If the situation were any less dire you'd almost be pissed that this was actually working. Part of the reason it's so hard to believe is because in your experience, adults really _are_ this dumb.

“I… I always wanted to be a janitor,” he sniffles. “I hate the things THE MACHINE makes me do. I really do.”

You reach up and pat him on the shoulder. “That’s okay, man. You can make up for it by letting me go hide in a stall for a couple minutes.”

“Of course, Mr. Broflovski. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

“Actually -” and this might be pushing it, but you - taking a cautious step past him - push it anyway. “I was wondering if I could go by myself?”

He wipes his eye and nods. “Sure. I’ll wait here.”

You take another step. Outside the vault. He doesn’t follow. Hand on the door, you say: “Sweet. Thanks. One other thing: are my friends here?”

“Yeah. They’re locked in offices on the third floor, but my buddy Jim has the keycards. He should be patrolling in the hallway.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” The guard doesn’t do anything when you start to close the vault on him, even though it takes you a whole minute to do it, straining all your weight against the heavy, metal door. It closes with a thud that you feel down to your bones. You turn the crank and lock him in, then your face contorts into an expression of pure rage. 

Cartman seriously thought he could use the words _I’m sorry_ on you and get off scot free? Who does he think you are? His mom? The school guidance counselor? You’ll make him sorry that he was even fucking _born_.

You stride through the abandoned bank with broiling, single-minded focus. Buddy Jim is indeed patrolling the hallway. He’s got no implants, and you can tell he’s a patriot of the most idiotic degree because he’s wearing a tacky stars-and-banners tie under his suit jacket. You feed him the rest of the speech you started giving in the train station and he hands over the keycards without asking a single question. He even agrees to go turn the security cameras off for you. You thank him through gritted teeth and head to the third floor.

The first door you open, unfortunately, contains Chad. He clambers to his feet, looking immaculately groomed despite the dark bruises forming around both his eyes.

“Mr. Broflovski! You came for me! You must really like me after a -”

You throw half the keycards in his face to shut him up. “C’mon. We have to get out of here fast.”

Chad helps you free the rest of the captives: Keyvan, Pip, Eve and Ugly Bob. You talked “Jim” out of both his handgun and his M4. You toss one to Pip and hand Keyvan the other. Eve slips a bobby pin out of her hair and starts picking the lock on her Vertex Synthesizer. She’s making a much clumsier go at it than Christophe did when he removed yours back in Washington and you wince when it clicks open, fully expecting to see her head get blown open. Instead, the metal crown falls to the floor, inert and harmless. 

“They took Leslie and the Commander to a different facility,” Ugly Bob sighs, carefully lifting the corner of his paper bag so that Eve can remove his Synthesizer too. “And we lost contact with Christophe, who's the only guy who knows where all the cells are located.”

“We can worry about that once we have escaped,” Keyvan says, checking the M4’s magazine. “We will move towards the ground floor using Zeta formation Six. Once we are in the lobby we will commence formation Alpha Fourteen. When the area is secured, we proceed forward with Delta Bravo Protocol Twenty-Eight.”

Everyone stares at him blankly.

Pip hums and adjusts the giant bow at his neck. “You do realize that you and Christophe are the only ones who care about all that battle formation toff? Everyone else merely pretends to understand what you’re talking about to be polite.”

Keyvan rolls his eyes. “ _Fine_. We go downstairs, incapacitate every guard we can, kill those we cannot, and then we shall blow the ever loving shit out of the perimeter once we escape.” He turns to you, expression softening. “Mr. Broflovski. We have put you through a lot and for that I apologize. Consider your obligation to us severed. From now on you are a civilian in our care. Hide here, and we will come get you when the fighting is over.”

“No I…” you run your tongue over your teeth. Your mouth is so dry it’s like you’re swallowing sawdust. “I’m one of you now. I’ll fight too.”

Chad’s eyes start glittering with tears at your moderately soulful proclamation of solidarity. If you stare at that for too long, you’re going to say something cruel and unwarranted to him, so you push past the group and yank the stairwell door open. “C’mon guys, let’s do this.”

The Resistance members move like a well oiled machine, clearing each floor with an efficiency you’ve only seen in Counter Strike matches against Craig’s gang. The first two guards you run into are patrolling the service stairwell. Eve claps Chad on the shoulder and whispers, “let us handle this.” Louder, she says: “I’m dating a boy, but I still like to flirt with girls!”

You can still see her, but neither of the guards notice Eve leap the bannister and slip around behind them. Chad strolls down the steps, straight into clear view of the patrol. Hands in his pocket, lopsided grin on his handsome face.

“Hey boyos,” he says. “Nice day we’re having, huh?”

One of the guards - a black guy, you notice - immediately draws his gun. The other one, though, he -

Holds his palm out, looking thoroughly and pleasantly charmed. “Hello sir,” he says when Chad reaches out to shake his hand. “You’re right -lovely weather, except for all the nascent radiation in the air.”

“Bill, what the fuck?” says the other guard.

Bill ignores him. “What can I do for you?”

Chad strokes his chin thoughtfully. “Well, lately I’ve been thinking about a career change. I always thought I’d be a shoe in at Quantico. What do you think?”

“I think you look exactly like the kind of Good Ol’ Boy we need down in Virginia,” Bill laughs, and jerks a thumb towards his companion. “Not like Mike here.”

Mike’s upper lip curls in disgust. “What the hell is going on here?” he demands, waving his gun in Chad’s face. “Bill, this kid’s one of those psychics. He got his Vertex Synthesizer off somehow and now he’s using his mind control powers on you!”

Bill keeps chuckling. He cups a hand around his mouth and directs an overloud stage whisper to Chad. “Don’t mind my buddy Mike. You know how his people are - so superstitious. He thinks you’re a witch just ‘cause you look like the kind of guy who knows his way around a Barbecue!”

“ _My_ people!?” Mike echoes. “ _Your_ people are the ones always falling for shit like chemtrails and Republican tax policies! I swear to Jesus, Bill if you don’t stop it with this shit I’m gonna kick your ass so hard it’ll send your ancestors to Ireland, you pussy ass little potato farmer!”

Bill turns to him and says, dead serious: “Jesus was white.” 

Before Mike can make good on his promise, Eve grabs his gun and whacks him in the face with it. She jabs Bill in stomach with the butt, then does one of those dumb-looking karate spins you only see in the movies: half pirouette, half wielding the M6 like it’s a warhammer. It knocks both men unconscious. She tosses her hair back when she lands, posing with one boot on the stair and two machine guns slung over her shoulders.

“Phew.” Chad wipes the sweat off his brow. “That was getting pretty racially tense.”

Eve throws Chad a rifle. “It’s a clear shot between here and the lobby,” she grins. “Time to rock n’ roll, boys.”

The six of you cluster around the door as Keyvan silently counts down from five on his hand. On one, he kicks it open and pitches three of Kenny’s smoke bombs into the lobby. The blowback gets in your eyes and you start coughing so hard you almost vomit. Luckily, you haven’t consumed anything but wineshine, military rations and a half-pack of expired skittles for days. You almost get left behind, but Pip picks you up and shoves you into the lobby with both hands so that he can take up the rear. You move in single line formation, Ugly Bob taking point. You see him - through the thick haze of smoke and debris - slip the paper bag off his head.

From behind, he looks completely normal. A dark haired man going grey at the temples. But ahead of you is absolute bedlam. The lobby is filled with FBI agents and military men screaming and clawing at their own faces as their skin begins to crystallize to stone. With the chlorate clogging your lungs and the echo of gunfire turning the lobby into deafening, cacophonous hurricane, the whole scenario begins to have a dreamlike quality to it. You could almost believe that you were still unconscious on that bank vault, tripping balls, except that a bullet flies too close and nicks you in the arm.

“Jesus _christ_!” you shout. Pip steps out from behind you and nails the guy who shot at you between the eyes. Then he dips down to snatch a pistol off a fallen soldier. He presses it into your palm and tsks.

“By jove, chap, keep up!”

Your hands tremble around the grip of the gun. This isn’t like taking a shot at a drone. It’s not even like taking a shot at a deer. The Resistance members pitilessly mow down every man not turned to stone by Ugly Bob’s hideous face, but you can’t bring yourself to do anything but pop a few bullets into the ceiling lights. The smoke is starting to disperse, slinking around the ruined desks and billowing in the dark corners of the lobby. It’s quiet by the time you reach the exit, except for the sound of a single man clapping as slowly and sarcastically as he can.

Doctor Smith is waiting for you at the front door.

“Congratulations on making it so far. That six people could dismantle this entire facility in under half an hour certainly speaks to the necessity of the Gifted Individuals Program. Once I file my report, our funding is going to triple.”

You’re shocked that no one shoots him in the head. What the hell are they waiting for? A dramatically appropriate moment? When you glance around at the Resistance members you’re surprised to find them frozen in place, pale-faced and horrified. Chad is crying.

Doctor Smith answers your question before you get the chance to ask it. “Confused, Mr. Broflovski? It might be easy to remove a Vertex Synthesizer if you know the trick, but it’s much more difficult to remove a conditioning chip implanted directly into the cerebral cortex. That chip serves one purpose: to instill in my test subjects a healthy, primal fear of their kindly physician. They literally can’t hurt me. The conditioning won’t allow it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you sigh. "Isn't that a bit much? You have a magic-mind control AI, _and_ magic mind-control computer chips? Where are you even getting the money to fund this stuff?"

"You'd be surprised at how much can be accomplished with a few generous - and strategic - cuts to social welfare programs."

“Kyle, shoot him!” Keyvan shouts, voice ragged and desperate. “You have no idea how dangerous this man is!”

Your gun’s been trained on him the entire time. Your arms are locked, but your legs are quaking so hard from the adrenaline rush it feels like they’re going to buckle underneath you. It’s not fear, though. Oh no - you’re not scared.

“Are you going to shoot me, Mr. Broflovski?” Doctor Smith asks calmly.

You lower the barrel of the gun, then toss it away. “No,” you reply. “I just want to talk.”

You’re not scared. You’re not angry. You’re not anything at all, but you know that this is going to work. You almost got him last night, before fucking Cartman got in your way. 

Doctor Smith arches a thick, grey eyebrow. “Really? You’re going to bank your freedom on the potency of a power you did not even believe you possessed three hours ago?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m banking my freedom on the potency of the human conscience. I don’t think you’re an evil man, Doctor Smith. Evil isn’t something people are born into - it’s a learned trait. We make ourselves evil by committing evil acts.”

“This isn’t going to work, Mr. Broflovski. I’ve gone under hours of training and intense psychotherapy to help me resist telepathic influence.”

“I’m not trying to telepathically influence you, Doctor. I just want to know more about you. Why are you so fanatically devoted to the Machine? Why are you so obsessed with people who have super powers?”

He pauses. Runs a thumb down the side of his nose. “This is... well, it's what I've always researched.”

“Yeah, but why?”

His eyes trail towards the ceiling. “My daughter…” He frowns. “Why are you so curious about this?”

“Never mind that. Tell me about your daughter.” You gut wrenches; you already don’t like where this is going. There's _always_ a "daughter".

Doctor Smith begins speaking as if in a trance. “My daughter was a level 3 Cerebrokinetic,” he admits. “She could convince any adult in a one hundred mile radius that her favorite toys were the most interesting thing in the world. A trivial power, but it was effective as a low-level, temporary brainwashing tactic. Unfortunately, she did not survive the tests we performed in order to determine how the power worked."

“Wow, dude. That's the most messed up and cliche thing I've ever heard." You shouldn't be surprised that his tragic backstory is as generic as his face.

"I don't recall asking you're opinion on it. It was necessary."

"Was it, though?"

“No. We incorporated it into our early designs of THE MACHINE, but all it succeeded in doing was creating the brony subculture. While bronies did eventual help the Republicans secure the White House, at the time it seemed like a failed experiment. I sacrificed my daughter for nothing. Everything I’ve done since was to justify that decision.”

You take a deep breath and coach as much compassion into your voice as you can. “Doctor Smith. Nothing in the world will bring your daughter back, you get that, right?”

He takes his glasses off so that he can wipe something out of his eye. He says nothing, so you keep going.

“When I was a kid I learned that one of the major tenets of Jewish faith is the idea that you should leave the world a better place than it was when you entered it. We reject the idea that a person is responsible for only themselves. You have to consider the moral welfare of society too, maybe even more than you worry about your own moral welfare. I think that science is the same way. The purpose of science is to improve humanity. Not to fuel your own ego, or even to soothe your own guilt. You’re a scientist, Doctor Smith. You don’t have to destroy society - you can still improve it. And you can start right now.”

“What can I do?” he wonders, voice cracking. “I can’t go back to my wife. I can’t go back to my lab. I’ve failed THE MACHINE. I failed my daughter. What can I do to bring more good in the world than the pain I’ve caused?”

“I think -” and you can feel it, the world _beneath_ that Kenny was talking about. A darkness bubbling up just beneath your skin. Except the horrible thing you’ve just pulled out of it is _his_ idea. You haven't talked a single person here into anything they didn't already want to do. You're just helping them take responsibility. “I think… that you know exactly what you need to do.”

Doctor Smith raises his face. His eyes are red and puffy from crying. With his glasses off, you can see that there’s two deep, red marks on the bridge of his nose from wearing them every day. He stares at you, so bereft that you can feel the sorrow bleeding off him in waves. He’s not just remorseful; he’s desolate. After a moment, he nods, and wipes his nose.

“You’re… right,” he says. And then he pulls a gun out from under his lab coat and blows his brains out.

You’re the only one who doesn’t flinch. The contents of his head splatter on the floor like a dropped jar of jam. You stare at them, and everyone else stares at you. You’re not upset. You don’t regret saying it. There are two types of retaliation in this world: revenge, and retribution. The first is selfish. The second is _justice_.

“Holy shit,” Chad whistles, running a hand through his sandy-blonde hair. “You _are_ the real deal, just like Leslie said. That was amazing, bro!”

You grind your palm into your eyes. They’re stinging. “Shut the fuck up, Chad.”

Keyvan comes forward and sets a hand on your shoulder. “Thank you, Comrade. For everything.”

You nod, still covering your face. “Are you guys gonna be okay?”

“Of course,” Keyvan replies. “We have fall back procedure that we can follow from here. Do you want to come with us?”

You consider it for a moment - running away with the Resistance, making amends to Canada. The idea of being a freedom fighter fluffs your ego, but it also makes you feel very small and terrified the same way that thinking about space too long does. You’d love to make the world a better place through direct action, sure, but you'd probably suck ass at it. Besides, none of this is your responsibility.

There’s something else you need to do. Something that’s gonna live under your skin like a virus until you take care of it.

You brush Keyvan’s hand away and start buttoning up your coat, eyes trained on what you can see of the city through the slit in the burnt sliding doors. 

“Sorry, I can't,” you reply in a voice so mathematically restrained that you can’t believe it belongs to you. “I’ve got a date to keep.”

And several hundred bets to settle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ me at: https://dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com/


	9. Like The Shadow That's By Your Side

_“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself, Kyle.”_

_“Now you want to know about me? After all that? Isn’t this the kind of question that’s supposed to come before ‘hey, why do you help your mortal enemy engage in autoerotic asphyxiation’?”_

_“It’s only ‘autoerotic’ when someone is doing it to themselves. If performed mutually, or on another person, it’s plain, old ‘erotic asphyxiation’.”_

_“I meant what I said. It’s definitely something he does to himself.”_

_“... hmm. I’m beginning to see it.”_

_“... see… what?”_

_“What it is that draws you two together.”_

_“Nothing_ “draws us together”! _You just got done telling me that you know all about what a psychopath he is! All I’ve ever tried to do was weather his fucked up behavior!”_

_“In that case, why don’t you speak for yourself, Kyle? Otherwise you’re letting your relationship with Eric speak for you.”_

You know he’s still in the city. It’s almost like you can _feel_ it. As if the air is thick from the aura of his priggish self-satisfaction. As if the walls are dripping grease. That’s how you always imagined it, in the fevered nightmares you’ve had about finally busting his skull open - like shoving your fist into one of those giant runoff buckets full of lard they keep at the back of a fast food restaurant, only it’s deeper than a black hole and it sucks you in until you drown.

You can almost hear the sexual crack Kenny would make about that symbolism, but you grew out of mystical dream interpretation years ago; you prefer to take your dreams literally. And what this one means _literally_ is that you’ve waited far too long to give the fat ass what’s coming to him. And it is coming to him.

See, Cartman has never done a thing to you in his life that he didn’t stick around to gloat about after the fact. You know that he wouldn’t fuck off if there was the chance of seeing you get kicked into an armored car and carted off to dissection jail. He’s probably planning the parade at this very moment. He’d at _least_ record it on his phone, file it away in whatever solid state portable hard drive he keeps all his documentation of the various tortures he’s subjected you to over the years.

 _That’s_ the part he gets off on. Not the doing, not even the winning, but from the way you react. He’s been pushing you closer and closer to the edge of the cliff for years now, almost as if he wants you to shove him off it.

It’s like what Christophe said about The Machine: the natural instinct of man is towards willful self-destruction. Cartman has been begging you to put him out of his misery since the day he stuck thirty-two pieces of gum in your hair in Kindergarten and then blamed Butters for it.

_“Um, okay. Well I…. I’m on the honor roll. I’ve been on the Student Council for the past four years and I used to play for the Park County basketball team. I still do debate club. I’ve been considering going to Columbia to get a degree in PoliSci, or maybe Philosophy. After that, I’ll probably do, uh… Law. I mean. That was… always the plan...”_

_“Like your father? He’s a lawyer, right?”_

_“...”_

_“Interesting. So far you’ve defined yourself entirely by what you do. Nothing about who you are as a person.”_

_“Look, Doctor Pradesh, I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m a pretty normal kid. And I don’t really like to talk about myself. Whatever you think Cartman sees in me, that’s all fiction in his mind, okay? Pure delusion.”_

_“I suppose this would be a bad time to bring up the fact that we have your police records on file.”_

_“Ugh. Listen - that’s what I’ve been saying this whole time. Cartman starts all that shit. I just finish it.”_

_“Really, Kyle? Are you sure that Eric starts all of it? He’s not mentioned in here nearly as much as you seem to think he is.”_

_“...”_

_“For example: a few years ago, you apparently burned down the Colorado School Book Depository. Eric had nothing to do with it.”_

_“I… I had a good reason for doing that…”_

_“Why don’t you explain it.”_

You head back to the Resistance base.

The sky was clear when you left Keyvan and the others at the bank, but clouds are beginning to roll down from the north, casting huge, foggy shadows across the ruined streets. You’re crunching through ankle deep slush, thinking, _thinking_ -

\- the mall is empty, hastily evacuated. Kenny’s body is gone, but you can see the puddle of blood that he died in: a stain in the shape of his body and beside it, your hat. That’s Kenny all right - always thinking about his friends. You snatch the hat off the ground and brush flakes of dry blood out of the wool before putting it on and taking a better look around. Looks like the scuffle went on longer than you thought. There’s a bunch of dead military guys here, but the subway station is practically cold storage so they haven’t started to stink the place up. The thing you don’t see is Christophe’s corpse, which… well, at this point that could mean anything.

You’re _thinking_ , as you pick through the corpses, about how Butters let something slip the other day. _We parked the car at Union Station_. There was a map in the Council’s meeting room. Cartman wouldn’t take the underland route; he’s been freaked out by enclosed spaces ever since he got kidnapped by a Mexican Drug Cartel three years ago for muscling in on their territory with that fake Ritalin racket he ran with Craig and your brother. He spent twelve hours in the trunk of a car for his trouble. No, he’d take the most direct route, straight through downtown. 

Your toe hits metal. You nudge a body aside, a little green at the gills, and find Christophe’s gun. Abandoned, and splattered with blood all along the barrel.

_“Sometimes when we feel a lack of control in our lives, we seek external subjects to exert control over, to give us a false sense of security.”_

_“... I... don’t get what you’re trying to imply here.”_

_“I think that for a smart kid like you, Kyle, the meaning should be pretty obvious. You don’t feel like you have control over your own life. But you have found a way to control Eric.”_

_“Woah, woah, back up. I-it’s not… whatever you just said, that’s not it.”_

_“What exactly is it that you think I said?”_

_“That it’s like… some weird… BDSM thing. Th-that’s n-not it.”_

_“Then what is it? What am I supposed to think, as a child psychologist, when a deeply troubled patient is admitted with signs of having been choked so severely that any sane person would have had him hospitalized? You could have killed him.”_

_“… are you… threatening me?”_

_“Of course not. I’m trying to get you to tell me the_ truth. _”_

__

You pop the magazine out and check how many rounds the rifle has left. Just three. You roll them around in your palm for a few seconds, frowning. It took you three shots to crack a bottle in that field outside Hamilton. More than that to hit the can beside it. Christophe’s pack is here too, but you can’t find any spare ammo inside. Medical supplies, a knife, cognac, a couple of Kenny’s smoke bombs, yeah, but three bullets are all you have if something goes wrong.

You sling Christophe’s pack over one shoulder, the rifle over the other, and go grab the map from the pharmacy office. It’s snowing when you hit the main street. The clouds are heavy and black. You move fast, beelining through the gnarled remains of a shopping pavilion and straight towards the water. You’re five minutes out when you find them: edges deformed by the wind, greaves filling in with snow, but unmistakably footprints.

They could belong to anyone, the rational part of your mind scolds you. A whole refugee camp evacuated through here not even twelve hours ago. They _could belong to anyone_ -

But they don’t. These footprints were made very deliberately and very recently, by someone unusually heavy. It’s almost like they were left for you. You don’t “think” that they might have been left by him. You _know_. Maybe that’s a side-effect of your “psychic powers”: the ability to convince any idiot to do the right thing, and a sixth sense that tells you when Cartman is doing something to piss you off, and where he’s doing it. Christ, it sounds almost stupid enough to be true.

You shove the map in your pocket and follow the footsteps down to the water before the storm can wash them away.

_“I… oh my God, this is going to sound stupid… but it’s… it’s for the greater good. Everything I’ve ever done to or endured from Cartman is for the greater good.”_

_“... I see.”_

_“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”_

_“I thought I’d heard every teenage justification for staying in an obviously toxic relationship out there but that… that’s a new one.”_

_“You asked me to tell you the truth, Doctor Pradesh. That’s… the truth.”_

_“I’m not sure it is.”_

_“No offense, m’am, but who the_ fuck _are you to tell me what’s true and what isn’t true about my own life?”_

_“Kyle Broflovski, I’m not sure you realize this, but you have the demeanour of a good liar.”_

_“You’re right. I didn’t realize that, because I’m not a_ liar _!”_

_“I didn’t say that you were. But everyone lies, Kyle. I’ve treated kids like you before, you know - well behaved overachievers who are extremely skilled at making people buy their own propaganda. I’d guess that as a child you were grounded less than your friends for the same behavior. I doubt you’ve ever served a single minute of detention. You said you were on the debate team, right? How many times have you gotten first place arguing a side you don’t believe in?”_

_“I…”_

_“Honesty is just as tactical as dishonesty, which is why pathological chronic liars always get caught. But... you don’t seem to be very good at lying to yourself.”_

_“...”_

_“I’m not saying this to be cruel. In order to disengage from unhealthy, cyclical relationships, we have to understand how we ended up in them in the first place.”_

_“D-do you think that I… should disengage from Cartman?”_

_“I think the better question is… why do you sound so hesitant about the idea of doing so?”_

_“... I… do I… sound hesitant?”_

_“Yes. Very. Especially for someone who has ardently claimed to only be keeping this relationship up to protect others.”_

_“Well. I…”_

_“If the problem is that you don’t think anyone else will do it… he’s locked in here now, and by the looks of his preliminary assessment, we’ll be keeping him for a few months. You won’t “have” to “mediate” his behavior anymore.”_

_“...”_

_“What I’m telling you is that you’re_ free. _So why aren’t you happy?”_

The wind is skating down the hill, blowing clouds of snow around your ankles. It feels a little like one of those showdowns in a spaghetti western when you finally catch up to him and for about six whole nanoseconds you consider whipping the gun off your back and shooting him in the head. Quick, simple, clean. But you don’t want clean.

He’s sauntering towards the station - probably whistling, but you can’t hear it above the rising storm - with his hands in his pockets and a spring in his step. You wonder, so briefly it doesn’t quite register as a legitimate worry, why the FBI let him go so easily. It doesn’t matter. _They_ don’t matter. The only thing that matters is you, and him, and how many of his ribs you’re going to break before you let him die.

You throw the rifle and the pack on the ground, and you shout his name at the top of your lungs.

“CARTMAAAAN.”

He stops. Freezes. Pulls his hands out of his pocket. And then he...

… spins around on his heel, and _smiles_ at you.

What the fuck does he think is going on here? _Waving_ at you with a big, smug grin on his face, like this was all in good fun? Does he think this is another _fucking game_?

You steel your stance and glare at him - practically vibrating - until he gets the message.

He doesn’t move when you start stalking towards him, but he sure as hell does when you break into a full tilt run. He wheels back around and books it down the street, holding his phone above his head.

“Wait, wait, Kyle, WAIT!” he squeals, trying to do _something_ on the screen. “If you would just lis -”

You crash into his back shoulder first. He hits the ground so hard that he actually bounces. The impact nearly throws you off, but you pin him down, a knee in the small of his back.

“Kyle, I’m seriously, you need to -” You wrench his arm behind his back. “Jesus _FUCK_.”

“I don’t need to _seriously_ anything, you sociopathic tub of lard,” you hiss, twisting a bit harder.

“Oh my fucking - _ouch_! Would you just fuckin’ LISTEN!?”

“I’m done listening to you, Cartman!” you snarl, patting down the sides of his jacket until you feel metal. You dig a hand into his front pocket and pull out the handgun he menaced you with yesterday.

“Okay, that’s… that’s fair, but you might wanna hear this one last thing it’s -” you pistol whip him across the back of the head. “SHIT! What the fuck, Kyle! That fuckin’ hurts!”

“That’s the IDEA!” you shout, and do it again, then toss the gun away.

“No, no, no, _no_ -” Cartman freaks out when he sees it go skittering into a sewer vent. “What the fuck are you doing!? My uncle’s gonna flip out when I don’t sneak that back into his collection over Christmas Bre -”

You grab a fistfull of his hair. “Shut _the_ -” and smash his face into the pavement. “FUCK UP!” You do it again, and again, and _again_.

He’s talking the whole time, of course. “Kyle -” _slam_ , “You have to -” _crack_ , “-listen to me you’re -” _bash_ , “- making a huge mistake -”

You wrench his head up so you can howl directly into his ear. “The _mistake_ was NOT DOING THIS YEARS AGO!” 

His face goes into the pavement again, and leaves blood behind this time. He stops begging for his life and starts fumbling with his phone. You aim the next headbash so that his forehead bounces off the glass. You hear something crack, and flip him over so that you can grab him by the front of his coat and shake some fear into him.

“Would you stop looking at your _phone_ while I’m in the middle of murdering you!?”

“I will -” he blubbers through a split lip, “- as soon as I -”

You punch him in the face, then you grab the phone and hold it high above you head. The sky’s so dark now that the phone’s backglow is the only point of light on the entire street. The blood dripping down Cartman’s face is black beneath it.

“Kyle,” he pleads. “Kyle, don’t you fucking dare -”

“Oh my God, Cartman, it’s only an iPhone 15. What’s going to happen if I throw it away? Are you afraid you’ll miss out on getting your gold fish in Neko Atsume? You won’t need them anyway when you’re _fucking dead_!”

“Kyle,” Cartman struggles to wipe the gravel off his cheek. “You really are the dumbest motherfucker on the entire planet, aren’t you?”

You’re halfway into swinging the phone into his nose when you hear Kenny’s voice.

_“... robably pretty mad, Kyle, but I hope this explains why we did what we di-”_

You stop, mid-swing, eyes wide. Your gaze crawls left and you see a video playing through the cracks on the screen.

_“- don’t kill Cartman. Well, okay, don’t kill Cartman for this specific thing at least. In the future if he pulls something like this for real, you have my full blessing to murder the shit out of him.”_

_“Eh! Eh! What the fuck is your problem Kenny? I leant you twenty-five bucks for beer last month and this is how you repay me?!”_

_“Yeah, at 150% interest.”_

“Wh-what?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to _fucking_ tell you! It was all a ruse!”

You don’t let him up, but you do ease back and plop yourself down on his chest. _Oof_ , he goes, like he has any right to react melodramatically to someone else’s weight.

You turn the volume all the way up.

_“- I know that you won’t take Eric’s word, so I’m making this video in case I don’t get through this. Listen: everything that just happened was my idea, not his.”_

_“It’s Kenny’s Keikaku!”_ says Butters from somewhere off-screen.

 _“Goddamnit, Butters!”_ Cartman, shoves his face into the camera. _“Stop calling it that!”_

_“I like it. It’s got nice alliteration.”_

_“Whatever, Kenny. You didn’t want to be in the band, so you can go fuck yourself.”_

_“Hey, Eric, you do realize that I’m saving your ass?”_

You shoot Cartman a withering look over the top of the phone. “Does this go anywhere or what?”

“Jus’ liffen,” he says, holding his bleeding lip together with two fingers.

You fast forward. _“ - eslie and I saw a good opportunity to get the Commander close to The Machine. It’s based on their brain-patterns, so they’re the only one who can take it out. The whole ambush was actually a trap for the FBI, not the other way around. But we had to make it look real. And we needed you to react like it was real too.”_

“Was… Kenny planning this the whole time?” you wonder.

Video-Kenny immediately answers your question: _“I was planning this the whole time, which is the only reason I took fatboy with me.”_

_“Uh, excuse me? The only reason? We got here using my car, my credit card, my gun, my forged identification papers, you ungrateful piece o -” ___

Kenny sets his hand on Cartman’s face and pushes him out of the frame. _“The only reason,”_ he reiterates. _“It’s a lot to explain, but Cartman’s immune to the kind of powers you and I have, which also makes him immune to The Machine. I knew you wouldn’t believe any of this, so he was the only one I could trust to remember the details of the plan if I got shot in the head.”_

__You pause the video. “What the hell is he talking about?”_ _

__“I dunno -” he lets his lip go. “He calls it a psycho-sympathetic bond because of that time he possessed me after I drank his ashes. Like some of his cthulhu juice got left over in my system.”_ _

__Okay. Right. So something incredibly stupid. You slip Cartman’s phone into your pocket and ask: “This was all Kenny’s idea? Betraying me?”_ _

__“No, _that_ part was my idea. Kenny wanted to let you in on the plan but I knew you’d keep being a pedantic dick about everything unless we did something to knock sense into you.”_ _

__“By emotionally manipulating me.”_ _

__“Oh, stop acting so victimized, Kyle, it all worked out, didn’t it?”_ _

__Your punching hand is curling into a fist again, but you fight to keep your voice even. “So everyone was in on the plan but me?”_ _

__Cartman shakes his head. You can see a cluster of burst blood vessels showing through the skin of his cheek. “Just me, Ken, the robot chick and Douchebag. Oh, and Butters. But it’s fucking Butters so who gives a shit.”_ _

__“... what about Christophe?” you ask quietly._ _

__Cartman blinks. “... who?”_ _

__You take a deep breath and hook a hand under his scarf. “Did. You. Tell. Christophe? Kenny undid his handcuffs, and I don’t think he’d do that if he wasn’t in on the plan. So I want to know, Cartman - _did you tell him?_ ”_ _

__“Err -”_ _

__“ _Cartman_.”_ _

__He winces. “Thaaaaat… might have slipped my mind. I mean, there were so many details to keep straight, and you know how forgetful Butters is…”_ _

__You shut your eyes. “I can’t fucking believe you.”_ _

__“Some sacrifices needed to be made for the _greater good_ , Kyle! Isn’t that, like, your biggest fucking kink!?”_ _

__“Oh yeah, what a huge coincidence that he was the specific person who needed to be sacrificed.”_ _

__Cartman snorts. “Like I was really supposed to give a shit about saving the life of some guy you fucked!”_ _

__Your eyes snap open and you yank his head up, straight into your fist. “You ASSHOLE!”_ _

__His head hits the pavement with a heavy _thunk_. Whatever he tries to sputter out in his defense gets eaten by your other fist going into his mouth. _ _

__“What the fuck is WRONG _with you_!?” you shout, hitting him again. “You talk a big game about making an effort but your reaction to a little jealousy is to fucking _murder someone_!?”_ _

__“I didn’t -” Cartman croaks. “ _Murder_ him, Kyle, I selectively omitted important information that -”_ _

__You punch him so hard that his top lip bursts open too. “It’s the same _fucking difference_! Don’t pretend -” you grab his bangs - “- you didn’t -” and bounce the back of his head off the cement. “- know _exactly_ what you were doing!”_ _

__“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he groans, but doesn’t nothing to block your next blow. You hear the cartilage in his nose go __crunch__. _ _

__You read once that it takes more training to throw a safe punch than it does to kill someone with one fist. You’ve always been a sloppy fighter: reactive and instinctual. Your mom was so worried about you going to middle school with kids from the other Park County towns; thought that you’d get bullied by all the “bigger boys” for being such a fucking _nerd_. The first ninth grader who fucked with you got three broken toes and a hairline fracture in his wrist. You still feel guilty about that sometimes. You’ve never hit someone who didn’t deserve it, but you don’t like violence, you really, really don’t. _ _

__That ninth grader, at least, threw a couple punches. Cartman just takes it. He always just _fucking takes it_._ _

__“Why aren’t you fighting back!?” you demand, backhanding him. You’re starting to tear up. “Cartman, I will seriously fucking KILL you if you don’t _fight back_!”_ _

__His eyes are so, so wide, reflecting the dark, swirling clouds above. He’s got that _look_ \- half fear, half awe, like all the electricity in his brain went out. He’s always _pushing_ you, poking and prodding and provoking, but the moment he gets what he wants, he shuts down. You really can believe that he has some primal, subconscious desire for you to straight up fucking murder him. Maybe that’s what he thinks romance is. If you killed him you would think about it every single day for the rest of your life. You’d never be able to wash it off._ _

__You pull your arm back to get some momentum behind your next blow and his hand flies up to catch your fist. You grit your teeth and push against his palm, but his elbow is braced against the ground. You can feel how violently his arm is shuddering, but it won’t budge._ _

__“K-Kyle -” he coughs up a bubble of blood. “S-Stop -”_ _

__“ _You_ stop!” you growl, trying to get your fist back. He clamps his fingers over your knuckles doesn’t let go. The snow’s coming down hard now, so fast that Cartman’s practically drowning in it. It’s up to his ears, clumping his hair together._ _

__“I’m not… f-f-fucking _doing_ anything!”_ _

__You pry his hand open and peel back his first two fingers until you hear something snap. You can see how much it hurts in the way his face contorts, but he doesn’t even scream. He just presses his tongue against his teeth and makes the longest, most agonized hiss you’ve ever heard. Awesome, you think as the blood rushes in your ears, you’ll break the rest so that he’s got a matching set. When you grope for his wounded hand, he finally gets it in his head that he should probably defend himself. He rolls up on his elbows and bucks you off. You grab both ends of his scarf so that when he tries to scramble to his feet all that happens is that he chokes himself. He slips in the snow and the two of you go rolling into the gutter._ _

__You land back first and hit your head on the curb, right in the place where you got nailed with a golf club three days ago. Cartman pins one of your wrists to the ground and catches the other one when you take a swing at him._ _

__“When I said -” he pants, dripping blood onto your cheek. “- that I thought mutually assured destruction was hot, I didn’t fucking mean literally, Kyle! Now would you calm the fuck _down_!?”_ _

__No. You still want to fight. You headbutt him, right in his broken nose. He reels back, blood streaming down his face, but you can’t get his big, fat body off of you. You try to squirm free, but he’s so _goddamn heavy_. _ _

__He puts one hand on your collarbone and the other around your throat. “Is _this_ what you want!?” he has to holler for you to hear him over the wind. He doesn’t push hard enough to constrict your breathing, but he doesn’t have to. He -_ _

___He’s getting taller, and you aren’t. Has to weigh at least twice what you do these days. You’re 99.9% certain you could still take him if you had to, but_ \- but -_ _

__You knee him in the balls as hard as you can._ _

__You swear to God his face actually turns green. It’s like time stands still for ten seconds as his body processes what’s been done to it, then he heaves forward and vomits. Not on you, but close enough that you get hit by a little bit of the splashback._ _

__He falls onto his side, clutching his crotch. “FffffUUUUCK! You fucking _psycho_! I wasn’t actually going to DO it!”_ _

__You push up on one elbow to glare at him. “ _I’m_ the psycho!? You’re the one who -” whatever else you were going to say is drowned out by the wind. You can’t even hear yourself think. You reach up to wipe Cartman’s vomit off your face and notice that your hair is frozen solid. Just thirty seconds ago, you were dripping sweat. Your eyes go wide when you register how deep the snow’s gotten. They go wider when you remember learning about how - while the rest of the world’s turning into a goddamn hothouse - post-bombs Canada can sometimes reach Antarctic temperatures. In a storm like this you could freeze to death in minutes._ _

__You stagger to your feet - shaky and numb from the adrenaline - while Cartman rocks from side to side, groaning. You make a quick assessment of your surroundings: you can see Christophe’s backpack and rifle outlined in the snow and, beside that, a junky, old station wagon with all the windows intact. For a moment you consider leaving Cartman behind. Locking the doors and watching from the dash as he turns into a human popsicle. You -_ _

__No._ _

__That’s a lie. You don’t consider it at all. You briefly fantasize about being the kind of person who _could_ fantasize about that, but you… you can’t do it. Not even if you wanted to. “Goddamnit,” you whisper to yourself._ _

__You stumble through the heavy snow and start pulling Cartman to his feet. He tries to bat your hands away so that he can keep curling into a fetal ball. “Cartman, If you want to live, you’d better get the hell up.” You prod him in the gut with your boot until he listens to you._ _

__You run, snatching the pack and gun as you go, and barrel into the back of the car - him first, and you slamming the door shut behind you. The wind screeches down the street and rattles the locks. You press up against the plastic armrest - as far away from Cartman as you can get - and stare at the quickly disappearing landscape._ _

__He’s quiet for a while. You listen to his heavy breathing, whistling and gurgling through his broken nose. You listen to him chew his way through a mouthful of mints, swearing under his breath the whole time because his face is hamburger. You can’t believe how much noise he makes even when being completely silent._ _

__He takes a deep breath and tries to talk to you._ _

____

He shuts up for longer this time. You don’t know how long. You’re trapped in a timeless vortex, and the blizzard has only just started. You keep smacking your hand against the window to dislodge the snow, but it’s not helping. The light disappears until all you can see of Cartman is the outline of his body and the whites of his eyes.

You honestly don’t know what to do or how to feel. You’re tired and frayed and your emotions are so all over the place it’s like you’re a piece of saran wrap stretched too thin: wrinkled at the edges and suffering fatal ruptures in the middle. You and Cartman have never been stuck together after a fight like this before. Oh, you’ve been sealed in tight quarters while insanely pissed off at each other - on planes and boats and buses and the back of Randy Marsh’s truck - but there was always a sense of momentum. A destination. A set amount of time that you could wait out before retreating to cool off. If that was liminal space, then this is hell.

Into the hellish silence, Cartman offers this: “... the gun was empty by the way.”

You press your eyes shut and count to three. “I don’t believe you. I don’t care. And I don’t wanna hear it.”

He huffs. “Fine, whatever. Keep being a bitch then.”

I’m not the bitch, you think, _you’re_ the bitch. A diamond-coated knife would chip trying to cut the tension of your petty, dueling tempers.

What the hell does he mean by _the gun was empty_? Is that supposed to make it better? You didn’t think he had the balls to pull the trigger in the first place, so the relative lethality of the gun is the _last_ thing you’re pissed off about.

You massage your forehead until you can get your words straight. “You... seriously expect me to believe _all_ of that was an act?”

“What?” Cartman drawls. “As long as it’s on your terms, you wanna have a heart to heart?”

You finally look at him. With your eyes adjusted to the dark, you can see that he’s bruised all down the right side of his face. “Yeah, fat ass. This is your chance to make a plea bargain, otherwise I’m still kicking your sorry butt into next year the moment this storm is over.”

He rolls his eyes. “Pfft. Why should I say shit. You obviously want to stay mad no matter what. Anyway - Kyle Broflovski, righteous savior of mankind, would never _entertain_ the idea that he did something wrong. You don’t wanna listen to my side of the story. You never do!”

“Are you for real pissed off at me right now? About the thing with Christophe?”

“I know that you have a hard time grasping this, Kyle, but I _do_ actually have emotions.”

You shake your head. “Unbe-fucking-lievable… you really do live in your own little world, don’t you?”

Cartman gapes at you. “ _I_ live in my own little world? We’ve basically been dating for a _year_ and _I’m_ the crazy one for getting pissed about you cock-hopping onto the first dick that presented itself after I get locked up? If Wendy did that to Stan you’d be telling him to dump her whore ass faster than a homeschooled chick snapping back in college!”

You stare at him for several seconds. “Dating,” you say.

“GrrRRGH!” he pulls at his hair. “I fukin’ _hate_ it when you do that! When you repeat what someone says back to them in that high and mighty tone of yours - do you have any idea how annoying you are?”

You throw your arms up in the air. “Great! Another drop in the bucket of things we can’t stand about each other. It’s only the size of the _fucking Pacific Ocean_ at this point!”

The air between you chills again. You smack the window some more, but the snow is stacked so thick is doesn’t budge.

“It was… half an act,” he mutters after a few minutes.

“What?”

He’s rubbing his black eye. “You asked if I expected you to believe it was all an act. Nothing I said was… _untrue_ , but I waaaaaas definitely trying to fuck with you as much as possible. Like, using Red Pill tactics to ‘emotionally manipulate’ you. Reeling you in, push and pull, that kind of shit. It was calculated.”

“Uh, no it wasn’t. You were just acting like a psycho as usual.”

“Exactly. Those guys are psychos Kyle, but it works. They get endless pussy, and then they die lonely! Because that’s what psychos do!”

You laugh under your breath. “So you admit it: you’re going to die alone.”

His head whips around. “I… ffff... ffffuuu… fuck OFF, Kyle!” 

He crosses his arms and turns his back to you. Sixteen years old and still throwing hissy fits. You got him so good he can’t even string two words together. Game set and match, that should be the end of it. But something about the hunch of his shoulders makes your stomach twist.

It’s not that Cartman is going to _die_ lonely. Because he’s already -

“... actually,” you murmur. “That was out of line. I’m sorry.”

He keeps pouting. You reach out and set a hand on his back. “Look… I understand, Cartman. You’re afraid of being alone. You’re afraid of being a psycho. I know. I’ve always known that about you. But you’re also afraid to change and that’s the problem.”

You feel him tense up under your palm. He lets out a long, laboured breath and says: “Kyle, I mean this absolutely and wholeheartedly with God as my witness: there is nothing I wish more dearly in this world than that you had died before it got so that the thought of you dying made me want to blow my own brains out too.”

Your fingers go tight around his shoulder. “I… see,” you grit out.

“You should have fucking died from diabetes.”

You shove him into the door. “ _You_ should have learned a lesson about wishing death upon people from that time you contracted HIV!”

He whirls around so that he can shove you back. “You should have died from HIV!”

“No, YOU should have died from HIV!”

“You should have died when you jumped off that roof in fourth grade!” you shout.

“You should have died from literally _eating shit_ in that iPhone experiment!” he shouts back. You jab him in the ribcage.

“You should have died one hour ago, when I locked you out of this car and watched you freeze to death!”

“And I should have shot you in the gut and left you to bleed out in that subway tunnel yesterday, _Kahl_ , but we don’t always get what we fucking want!”

You fall back into your seat, making a dismissive hand gesture. “You should have been stillborn,” you mutter, so tired that your arms feel like lead. “No, your mom should have aborted you at thirteen weeks and saved everyone a whole world of trouble.”

“Is that what you really want?” Cartman asks. “To have never known me?”

You shoot him a sideways glance. “What? Don’t you wish the same about me? Don’t you think about how much ‘sweeter’ your life would be without me foiling all your plots?”

He runs both hands down his face and groans. “Kyle are you a complete retard? Is that it? Was Stan double misdiagnosed all those years back because actually it turns out you’re the one with Ass Burgers?”

“It’s Asperger's, you ablest dickweed. And no, I’m not a complete retard, you’re the retard! Why the hell _would_ you want me around!” Cartman opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. You glower at him. “Why do you want me around, Cartman?”

His eyes go wide, but he still doesn’t say anything.

“I’m serious. I’ve been wondering this for years: why are you so _goddamn obsessed_ with me?”

He’s quiet for a moment, making confused, abortive hand gestures with his non-broken fingers. Softly, he says: “... why wouldn’t I be?”

“What?”

He licks his lips and runs a hand through his hair. “Why _wouldn’t_ I be obsessed with you? Jesus, you really have no fucking idea what you’re like, do you?”

“What am I ‘like’?” you ask, flatly.

“You never back down from anything. I can break most people in like ten minutes flat, right?” he snaps his fingers. “But I’ve been trying to humiliate you for most of our lives and all you ever do when I knock you down is brush yourself off and punch me in the face. You’re literally undefeatable! You know that half the shit I get up to is because of the adrenaline hit I get when you fight back, right? You think I’d get _bored_ of that? Are you fucking nuts?”

“I, uh.” _What?_

He keeps going: “You’re like… you’re the most stubborn, unmovable piece of shit in the whole goddamn universe. Sometimes it’s like you’re not even on the same planet as the rest of us. I used to think that if I could knock you off your pious, self-aggrandizing pedestal, I’d be fucking set. King of the castle. _Unstoppable_. But that would last all of two seconds before I -” he stumbles over the next words, changes gears. “ _Fuck_ , I don’t get why everyone who meets you isn’t fucking obsessed with you. Sometimes when I look at you, I see -” he stops, and looks sick to his stomach.

Your heart is beating so fast you’re surprised it doesn’t explode. “... you see what?”

He sighs and flops against the car door. “It doesn’t matter. Everything is stupid and shitty and boring and worthless without you, Kyle, especially me. I’m the fucking shittiest, most worthless piece of crap that ever existed without you. There’s no _point_ to anything if you’re not around.”

You blink. “... uh?... Huh.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, now you’re all tongue tied. For once you don’t have anything to say?”

“What the hell am I supposed to say? Do you have any idea how crazy that all sounded?”

“Why don’t you answer your own question, then?” He points at you. “Why are _you_ so obsessed with _me_?”

“I’m not,” you answer automatically.

“Then how are you even here?”

You don’t understand the question. “What?”

He snickers. “Yeah, that’s fucking _right_. You’re so obsessed that the only thing that could get you out of that cell was the thought of me -” he spins his finger and points at himself. “- being outside of it.”

You bite the inside of your mouth. This is such a classic Cartman statement that it almost gets your blood boiling again: technically correct on the surface, but so staggeringly wrong on every other metric that you can’t even picture the train of thought that led him there. “Yeah. Because I wanted to kill you. Cartman, does that sound good to you?”

He tips forward, fingers steepled, misery sloughing off him in extremely thin layers. “Who the fuck is talking about good here, Kyle? Of course what I feel for you isn’t _good_. That’s because it’s _real_. It’s the realest shit you’re ever gonna experience no matter how much french dick you suck.”

You turn away and watch the shadows move behind the snow. That’s what you’re afraid of. Your voice comes out all cracked. “Maybe I like good, Cartman. Did you ever think of that?”

“Yeah right. What was your game plan, then? As of twelve hours ago you were pretty fucking hype to simulate oral sex on at least one of my extremities despite giving me the _‘this is the last time, Cartman’_ speech like twice a week minimum. What, were you gonna go to college and forget about it?”

 _College? In this political climate. Ha ha._ “I didn’t think about it. But I guess, subconsciously… yeah, that’s how I always thought it would end.”

“Really. You think we’d just start ignoring each other once there was a couple of miles between us?”

You run your finger down the length of the window, scrape the frost off with your fingernail. “You don’t think I could? Maybe I’d meet a nice girl in freshman year. You never know.”

“A nice Jewish girl, really? You still think that you really want a _nice girl_ , Kyle?”

“Maybe…” you smile sadly, eyes sliding towards the ceiling. “- a nice Jewish boy. Why not.”

Cartman’s got his little corporate-dictator-in-training act going now. “Okay,” he says, in the same tone of voice he uses when attempting to hook you into an ill-advised scheme. “- so you’re rooming with your nice Jewish girl and/or boy, working on the first year of your Law degree, and then you hear that I’ve been busted for public indecency. I was getting blown by some scrawny ginger in an airport bathroom. He’s all over the tabloids. He’s objectively hotter than you, but he tells Us! Weekly that I made him wear a paper bag over his head when we fucked, which is true. I totally make him do that. You can’t stop thinking about his perfectly straight nose.”

You look at him. “Cartman what the f… okay, first of all -” you hold up a finger. “I don’t read the tabloids. I, in fact, am not following your career at all in this stupid, theoretical scenario, because I don’t care.”

“BullSHIT you don’t care about my career! Even if you could convince yourself you _didn’t_ , every time you turn on C-SPAN, you’d hear my voice.”

“I -”

He bridges the distance between you so that he can poke the tip of your nose. _Fondly_. “Don’t fucking pretend you don’t watch C-SPAN,” he purrs.

“F-fine. I watch C-SPAN.”

“So you know I’m on the Senate. You know that Chelsea Clinton is going to pick me as her running mate-”

“Chelsea Clinton? Really?”

“Don’t get hung up on the details. The important part is that I’m going to be Vice President of the United States. I _could_ be President, but I’m settling for the honorary position. And you can’t figure out _why_.”

“I -”

“You haven’t talked to me in years,” he coos. “You can tell I’m up to something, but you have nooOOOOOOooo idea what my plans are. Tell me it wouldn’t just _burn_ you up inside.”

“Arrgh!” you bury your hands in your hair. “Yes, of course it would fucking drive me _insane_!”

He claps. “Hah!”

“It would drive _me_ insane,” you clarify, letting your hands drift to your lap. “The person I am now. But maybe in this future, it wouldn’t! Maybe I’m a different person! Maybe I’m healthier, maybe I’m happy. Maybe me and that nice Jewish…” _okay, probably_ “-b-boy - we settled down and got married. I never left Colorado. I’m a small town lawyer like my dad and I don’t give a crap about cleaning up after you anymore. What then, Cartman?”

His confidence starts to crumble. “W-well, uh -”

“We have a kid, me and this nice Jewish boy. It’s the future - maybe it’s not even an adopted kid. It’s got my genes down to my stupid, not-straight nose.”

He snorts. “Wow. I won’t tell Ike what you just implied about adoption.”

“Shut up, our second kid is adopted. I have a happy little family and I’m so far away from you and all your bullshit that I can’t be assed to give a shit, even when I see see your face on billboards. What. Then? What do _you_ do? Do _you_ forget about _me_?”

“I… ha…” he rubs the back of his neck and wheezes. You scoot closer so that you can peer up at him, see the details rippling through his expression in the darkness.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have a contingency plan, Cartman.”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you trying to bait me into admitting that I’d use my political power to murder a baby?”

“ _Would you_?”

“I mean, I can’t say I haven’t considered this exact scenario, but…”

“But?”

He says nothing.

“You wouldn’t do it, would you?” you say, a little surprised. “Why not?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and snarls: “because you’d never fucking forgive me, obviously!”

 _Of course_. “And that’s the thing that’s been killing you, right? You need me to come willingly.” You touch his face and turn it towards you. Stroke his cheek until his eyes flutter back open. “You weren’t like that when we were kids. What changed?”

“I -” he takes a deep breath, like it’s embarrassing that he’s learned how to be nice once in a while. “- realized… that it was possible to get positive attention from you.”

“And so that’s what you want now? My positive attention? Cause I’m gonna be honest - your methodology on that front needs some work.”

A huge, unpleasant grin inches across his face. “Oh, Kyle, what kind of loser do you think I am? I want _all_ of your attention.”

“Right. Because it’s ‘pointless’ without me. You need me around to react to your stupid schemes or you experience ego death, is that it?”

“No, goddamnit, it’s because -”

You raise both your eyebrows. “Because…?”

He leans back, so that you and him are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the center of the carseat. “This is going to… sound so fucking gay -” he mumbles.

“Gayer than you having my dick in your mouth?”

He doesn’t rise to that. He stares at you with his huge, puffed-up eyes. You stare back. The emotion that surges between you _could almost be described as_ -

“People who are… the same belong together, right?”

“... what.”

“Ugh. No matter how I phrase this, you’re gonna hate it.”

You bump your shoulder against his. “Try anyway.”

“I used to think relationships were a zero sum game, right? You’ve got the dick, and you’ve got the pussy. Someone’s gotta lose and subsume their personality to the dominant partner, and I’m -”

“- a little obsessed with trying to exert dominance over your surroundings, yeah I noticed.”

“Would you let me finish?”

You nod, and gesture for him to go on.

“So when we were younger… the fact that you were always challenging me pissed me the fuck off because it was so uh… _intense_ that I didn’t know what to do about it. I could never win. Everything was a temporary victory. I felt shitty and weak all the time. I wanted you to feel shitty and weak too, so I...” 

“... tried to exterminate the Jews?”

“Once, Kyle!” he sighs. “I try to exterminate the Jews _once_ and you never let me forget it!”

“Are you actually trying to tell me that all the horrific anti-semitism you subjected me to when we were kids was because you subconsciously wanted... to fuck me?”

“Ehhh…” he makes a non-committal hand gesture. “I mean, come on Kyle, we’ve both read history. But it was not an _insignificant_ contributing factor.”

You elbow him, hard. “You know, I wouldn't "hate" this if you worked a little harder to sound less like a bigot while attempting to express regret over acting like a bigot.”

“Are you seriously, _seriously_ , trying to give me one of your speeches? Seriously? While I’m in the middle of making a love confession?”

“Oh, is that what this is?” You push away, slide towards the other side of the cab, because the closer you are to him the harder it is to _breathe_. “What it sounds like is you deflecting blame for your shitty behavior again. I’m giving you every chance in the world here, Cartman, but you just keep -”

He grabs you by the arm to tug you back, and not gently. “Would you fucking listen to me!?” he hisses, shaking you. “I’m not finished!”

You glance down at where his fingers are digging into your flesh. Specifically, his broken fingers. He gets the message and lets you go.

“Okay, look - I’m _ssssssoooorry_.”

“Don’t burst a blood vessel straining there, tubby.”

“Fuck you, Kyle. I’m _trying_ to be sincere, like you’re always telling me.”

“So be sincere.”

“All that dumb shit I used to say… I know none of its true. I like getting a rise out of people. The bigger the rise, the bigger the dopamine rush. It’s so fucking _simple_ \- how am I supposed to resist it when it’s the easiest way to get attention?”

You tip your head to one side. “Huh. I didn’t think you’d realized that about yourself.”

“Of course I realize that about myself. I’m not a total idiot, Kyle, - I just have extremely poor impulse control. Especially when it comes to you.”

“Did you learn that from your whole forty-eight hours in therapy?”

“Yeah. I did an entire weekend of therapy, Kyle,” he crows, scooping up one of your hands. “It fucking sucked balls, but if we live through this I’m going to go back. Know why?”

You let out a breathy, humourless laugh. “Because you’re trying to win some dumb bet with me?”

“No, because the only feeling in the world more intense than when you challenge me is the one I get when we _work together_. So I’m willing to -” and he grinds out the next part, like it’s the most difficult word he’s ever said in his life. “Cooom… proooo… miiiiiise.”

“Y-you…” There’s a feeling rising in your chest - like helium filling a balloon. Like you’ve put your foot over the edge of an impossibly deep pit. You try to walk it back, but there’s nothing behind you to walk back to. “You want to... _compromise_?”

“Yes, Kyle, I want to compromise with you. But _only_ you. Everyone else can kiss my ass. That’s love, bitch.”

“That’s… that’s uh,” your heart is doing that gay little backflip again. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” On a comparative scale - when weighed objectively against the level of monstrosity Cartman is capable of - you think it might be the romantic thing you’ve ever heard period.

“No,” he nuzzles the back of your hand. “The most romantic thing I’ve ever said to you is when I asked you to be the Trotsky to my Stalin.”

You snatch your hand away. “I’m being serious Cartman, don’t ruin it. That was actually really beautiful.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “It’s either that, or we kill each other.”

Slowly - very slowly - you lean your cheek against his chest. “Mutually assured destruction,” you murmur. “God. It feels like we’ve been stuck in this cycle since before the universe began.”

“Ha ha ha. That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever fucking heard. And I’ve had your dick in my mouth.”

You punch him - lightly, and without intent - in the stomach. “You know that this is what I’ve always wanted to hear from you, right? I don’t care about all your… dumb theatrics, your attempts at mind games. I just need to know that you’ve actually done some serious self reflection. That you’ve put work into improving yourself. That’s… that’s all I want.”

He hesitates. Strokes a hand down your back so cautiously that it’s like he’s leaving room for Jesus (the literal historical figure, not the talk show host). “... yeah I know that. ‘Cause you’re the only person who gives a fuck about me.”

You blink up at him. “That’s not true.”

“It is though.”

“What about Kenny? Butters? You _mom_?”

The expression on his face could probably kill a man, as in it’s the same kind of expression you’ve seen him make before literally deciding to kill a man. “Come on, Kyle, you’re not stupid. You know what I mean. They all think I’m a lost cause. Everyone does. But you care about what I _do_. You care about who I’m going to be in ten years. And I have no fucking idea why.”

You push off his chest. Look at your hands. Your knuckles are still smeared with his blood. “Because, Cartman,” and your voice sounds like it’s been released from twenty years of being shackled to a lead ball. “I believe that you can change. And as long as I believe that you can change… then I believe anyone can change. I can believe the _world_ can still change.”

He’s silent for a long time, as if he’s not sure how to process that. The way he does is by doubling over with laughter. “Oh my GOD, are you fucking serious!?” he howls. “You’re like: _‘Oh, Cartman, why are you soooo obsessed with me’_ , meanwhile you’re over here waiting on me to restore your faith in humanity! Holy shit, that’s _rich_! Never change, Kyle, you high and mighty, first-rate _fucking hypocrite_!”

You let him wear himself out. Much like the way he cries, the way he laughs is largely performative. There’s a prelude, a first and second act, a crescendo, and then he tops it off by pretending to wipe his eyes. You give him a flat-mouthed look and say: “Hey, come here.”

He does, pulling a leg up under him so that your knees are touching. You dig through Christophe’s backpack and pull out some medical supplies. Cartman doesn’t say anything as you set his broken fingers, just watches your hands. You start wiping the caked blood off his face with the heel of your palm, somewhat tenderly. You’ve made a few decisions in the last few minutes; most importantly, to not kill him.

“What’s with how you always want to make out after you beat the shit out of me?” he asks.

“I do not.”

“Oh yeah, then what’s happening right now?”

“A case of confirmation bias and projection,” you answer crisply, pressing down on a cut until he whimpers. “ _You’re_ the one who has some fucked crosswiring between sex and violence. Otherwise what the hell was up with that thing with the gun yesterday?”

“I - I just got done telling you that was only about fifty percent sincere, Jesus.”

“Uh huh. What part of it was insincere? The part where you threatened to kill me, or the part where you threatened to rape me?”

He makes an exasperated noise. “This again! Why are you so fixated on the idea of me raping you!” 

“Well…” you say, mouth dry, pulse fluttering. “Can you honestly say you never thought about it?” 

“Uhhhhh,” he says back.

You have to work to suppress your grin. Pathological liars always get caught. “Cartman,” you whisper. “I want you to look me in the eyes and try to tell me that you _honestly_ have never once thought about raping me.”

He starts to panic, just a bit, looking askew all around the car. “UHHHH...”

You grab both ends of his scarf and pull. _Urk_ he goes as he pitches forward. “I said _look me in the eyes_ , Cartman.”

He does. “Kyle, what a person jacks it to in the privacy of their own mind does not necessarily say anything about what they would or would not do in real life. Why, Clyde cranks it to loli doujin every day - are you saying he’s a pedophile?”

“I don’t care - or want to know, oh my god - what Clyde thinks about when he jerks off. I’m asking _you_ what you’ve thought about _me_.”

He licks at the cut on his lip nervously. The light in his eyes says: _“some pretty fucked up shit”_. Out loud, he defends himself. “To my credit… they weren’t very satisfying fantasies.”

You unwind his scarf and press down on one of his bruises. They’re a week and a half old and still tender. “Why is that?”

“B-because I knew you’d… never let me…”

“Mmm, isnt that the the point of rape?” you ask, sliding into his lap. You hitch a knee up around his hip. “Tell me about them.”

He swallows so hard it looks like a rock’s going down his throat. "Jesus Christ, Kyle, what is this? Nuremberg?”

You jab your thumb in a bruise and twist. “ _Cartman_.”

“Ow! F-fuck! I’m serious here, is this a trick?”

“No,” you say honestly. “I want to know, since we’re getting everything out in the open. I won’t get mad, no matter how fucked up it is.”

“Uh…” his breath skips a few beats. “F-fine. When I was twelve… I used to think about getting my kidney back. We’d go swimming in the summer and I couldn’t stop staring at your surgery scar. It started out totally innocent, by the way -” he slides both hands under your hat and starts tangling his fingers in your curls. “I read a couple books on battlefield medicine. Made Butters steal some shit from the school nurse’s office…”

“Innocent,” you repeat.

“That kidney still belongs to me, Kyle,” he rasps, tugging you in by the hair. “And I used to think about it all the fucking time. How… how hot it would be to slice you open and slip my fingers into the wound…”

“What was hot about it?” you breathe against his lips.

“I don’t fucking know. It’s pretty obvious psycho-sexual imagery. Putting part of me inside of you. My first real wet dream was from imagining putting my whole hand in there."

“Did you imagine fucking the wound?”

Cartman reels back so fast you can almost hear the gears screeching in his head. “Hey, woah! What the actual fuck, Kyle! What the hell is wrong with you!? That’s fucking _disgusting_! W-wait -” he squints, examining your face. “Are you… getting off on this?”

“Um…” yeah, you’re definitely like 25% aroused. You hold up your thumb and forefinger, pressed together. “K-kinda? Is that a problem?”

“Hell _yeah_ it’s a problem, because you’re always acting like your shit doesn’t stink! You got sooooo pissed at me when I suggested we kill your dad together, acting like I’m a freak for thinking that violence is a little bit sexy and yet you’re here all -”

“Cartman, shut up.” You cover his mouth with your hand. Then you try your best to sound sultry, but your voice comes out all squeaky instead. “Do you wanna fuck me in the back of this shitty station wagon or what?”

His eyes go so wide it’s like they’re gonna pop out of his head. “M-me… fuck… you?” 

“That’s what I said.”

“You want me… to put my dick in your ass… and fuck you. Is that seriously what you’re saying.”

“Yes, Cartman.”

He keeps bargaining for some reason. “Er… w-without lube? Or condoms? O-or any of that shit?”

You laugh. “What, are you gonna give me AIDS a _second_ time.”

“No I…" His gaze rolls towards the ceiling. "- just… won’t that… totally suck for you?”

“Not more than getting fucked in my kidney.”

“Is this a _fucking trick_???!!”

You brush his bangs out of his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I..." He closes his eyes and sincerely looks as if he’s going to die. "...never... thought I’d get this far…”

“Well, you did. So what are you going to do?”

What he does is kiss you again. Different than than the first time, which was all teeth and spit and done so viciously that there was no room for response or reprisal. This time, his bottom lip is trembling. It’s almost shy, his breath all shaky and feeling about a million degrees warm in the frigid air. He slides a hand around the back of your neck and tilts your head so that your face isn’t mushing up against his broken nose. After that it’s up to you to deepen the kiss with all the wet, messy inexperience you can muster. Your tongue skims his teeth; you push, insistently, until he opens his mouth under yours with a choked sound that’s more like a sob than a moan. It sends an even stronger jolt to your heart than your dick, which is a really bad sign.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Cartman whispers. 

“I know,” you reply. His mouth tastes like blood and breath mints.

He leans back in, kisses your jaw, your chin, then licks into your mouth. Your kisses get hungry and his get kind of desperate: shorter, sharper, poorly aimed. He shoves you up against the car door and sucks at your bottom lip like he’s trying to leave an Olympic gold medal hickey there. There was something pretty nice, you have to admit, about making out with Christophe, about letting someone older and more experienced take you for a ride, but this? This is something else completely - the anxious exploration, the uneven, staggered rhythm of figuring each other out, of translating learned patterns from all your arguments and fist fights and terse, stormy treaties into points of pleasure. It’s making your head spin, like you’re high, like you’re not getting enough air, like there’s isn’t enough air in the entire fucking world to fuel the flame you’re stoking. 

Your hands clutch the sides of his winter coat so tight that your knuckles start to ache. The synthetic fabric is slick under your fingers. You can feel the little, fibrous points on the goose-feathers inside the quilting. Just the kissing is so intense that you’re afraid to let go and actually _touch_ him. You keep imagining it - sliding your hands into his jacket, up under his shirt, kneading at where the fat dimples on his back just below the shoulder blades. His skin probably feels like touching a hot stove element right now. He’s got one hand on your thigh and the other braced against the car-door armrest. He hasn’t moved them since you first forced your tongue into his mouth, stilled by the same mortal terror that’s squeezing the shit out of your chest - you can kiss, or you can touch each other, but if you do both, you might actually die. It’s like a fucking stand-off, the one who self immolates first loses. “C-come on,” you growl between kisses, hating how helpless and cracked your voice sounds.

“Uggh, you’re such a fucking nag,” but he sets a palm in the center of your chest and pushes you down. After that, he hesitates, chewing his lip. The light in the backseat is grey, speckled with dots of light that catch on his bangs and eyelashes. You think, not for the first time, that Cartman’s got a lot of his mother in his face: delicate, round features, almost feminine. Forty pounds lighter and he’d maybe be attractive. Kind of pretty, even. Would you like that, you wonder? You’re always so cruel about his weight, it’s almost reflexive at this point, but it seems wrong somehow. He’s always so fucking big in your dreams, crushing all the light out of the frame, crushing the life out of everything around him. The only thing that scales him down is vulnerability. The muffled light makes his edges seem soft. Thinking about it makes your heart beat faster.

He unbuttons your coat and glides a hand under your - at this point, astonishingly grimy - hospital gown. His thumb runs up the long cord of scar tissue on your torso. You imagine him staring at it, thinking about slicing it open in one languid cut with a scalpel. That’s a horrible thing to get turned on by, so you bite your thumb to dampen the gross, strangled gasp that comes out of you and he... drinks it in. Like actively, literally imbibes your breath, the way you’ve seen the meth addicts who hang out around Kenny’s house fucking huff paint before. You get caught looking at him the same way he’s looking at you, which is with his weird stalker eyes, pulled open so wide they catch all the light filtered in through the snowstorm: utter disbelief that he got this far.

Yeah, you didn’t think he’d get this far either. He braces his hands on either side of your head and… doesn’t do anything. He just stares at you, breathing noisily through his fucked up nose.

You hook your fingers under his collar and drag him down. “Why are you stopping? C’mon, I didn’t kick you in the balls _that_ hard.”

He frowns. “No, fuck you. I -” he inhales, whispers: “I don’t actually hate your nose.”

“Uh. O… kay?”

He runs his finger down the bridge of it. “Three weeks ago I told you I hated your nose and you got all pissy about it. I don’t hate it. I used to fantasize about breaking it all the time.”

“Ha. If you wanna break my nose so bad, start working out, tubby. Maybe in six months.”

“No, not like that, Kyle, God - with, like, pliers, or a wrench.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Y’know, getting everything out in the open. I -” he sniffles. Something hot and wet hits your cheek; he’s crying. Real crying, not crocodile tears like you’re used to. You cup his face between your hands and force him to look at you.

“Holy shit. Cartman, you’re shaking.”

“Don’t fucking make fun of me,” he hisses. He squeezes his eyes shut, like it hurts to look at you, and more tears bunch up at the corners.

“I’m not. What the hell are you afraid of? I… I almost choked you to death once. This should be easy.”

“Yeah but that was when this was still a game, right? That’s what you said. But this? This is -”

 _Real_. Your tongue rolls over your bottom lip, which is kiss bruised and all torn up from where you’ve been chewing off the dry skin for weeks. It’s real - there is absolutely no justification for what you’re doing right now except that you both want to do this, specifically with each other. You can’t blame teenage hormones, the hate-lust crosswiring, because this is probably the least horny situation you could imagine. You’re not looking to get laid, instead you kind of feel like you want to cut open his body and crawl the inside of it, just do _anything_ to define what it is Eric Cartman means to you. He’s big enough you could probably do that too, wear him like a goddamn coat. 

He rests his forehead against yours and whispers: “That’s what I’ve been saying: I’m kind of fucking scared of you, Kyle. You’ve always had this… like, mysterious, dark power over me.”

“Ah, yes, my dreaded Black Jew Magic.”

He pulls back. “Okay, let it go on the record that you’re the one who brought Jewish blood rituals into the conversation, not me.”

“You caught me, Cartman,” you retort tonelessly. “I totally cast a gay hex on you back in elementary school, but actually what I was trying to do was get a discount on brunch at Bennigans.”

His mouth falls open.

“Oh my God. Is that really what you think?”

No! I - Jesus, Kyle, don’t you get it. Have you heard a single word I’ve said? To get what I want here, I… I have to _let you win_. I have to trust you. You haven't given me an inch.”

That… oh, that’s... a lot.

“You don’t think it’s hard for me to trust you too?”

“But you don’t. And you never will. ‘Cause you’re too fucking smart for that. And that’s how it’s always gonna be between us. You’re gonna make me your bitch.”

Something in your stomach turns over. More than sympathy, more than empathy. Much worse too: it’s a little possessive ember that’s been burning inside you for years. It covets every moment of true, honest weakness you’ve ever seen in him. 

“I… I do trust you.”

“Like hell you do.”

“I trust you to always behave in a predictable manner. I trust you to always self-sabotage any plan you’ve made to really hurt me.”

Cartman snorts. “Oh, you’re _suuuuuuch_ a romantic, Kyle Broflovski. No wonder you’re always covered head to toe in bitches wherever you go.”

You set your finger over his lips. “If love can be defined as the willingness to compromise, can’t it also be defined as showing enough weakness to trust someone with something like this? To trust someone enough to potentially let them hurt you?”

The color drains from his face. He looks honestly blasted. “Wh-what?”

Your head empties out when you realize what you accidentally said. And it was an accident. He looks so utterly, completely lost. You feel it too.

Push and pull, he said. That he doesn’t know what to do with even the smallest measure of control when it’s handed to him rather than forcefully extracted… it’s kind of adorable. Actually, in this exact moment what it is, is kind of _hot_. You’re the only one who’s ever seen Cartman like this. Maybe the only person who ever will. 

“This is your chance,” you whisper. “What do you want to do to me?”

He shuts his eyes and inhales like you gut punched him.

“What?”

“Oh, just -” his voice is quivering. “All the blood went back to my dick so fast I almost passed out.” He cracks an eye back open. “Are you _sure_ they were right about what kind of psychic you are, because this is playing out suspiciously close to to the first five minutes of almost everything in my spank bank.”

“Even the part where you started crying like a little girl?”

He doesn’t bristle at that the way you expect. Instead, he smiles mischievously. “Kyle… I waaaant... you to call me by my Christian name.”

“I…” You’re not. You don’t... “You’ll have to work a little harder for that.”

“Fine. Whatever.” So, breathlessly, he asks: “... then can I at least hit you?”

“What? As some sort of messed up trust game?”

“Nah, for fun. You asked me what I wanted to do to you, and that’s what I want to do to you. Because you’re lame and won’t let me choke you. By the way, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

You groan and roll your head back. “Ugh. Stop talking and just fuck me already.”

“God, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you to say that, Kyle.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

You didn’t give explicit permission either way, so he cranks his arm back and slaps you as hard as he can. You gasp, not because it hurt that bad, but because it sent a tremor straight to your cock so powerful you actually saw stars for a second. The intersection between sex and violence being a thing you like in both directions is not something you needed to know about yourself at the ripe old age of sixteen, and yet: here you are. Thank God there’s no one else in the world who makes you feel this way.

“Was it good?” he asks, and you remember how Kenny described you two: _baby’s first sadomasochistic sexual exchange_. Your face flushes as a thousand confused, undefined little sparks of potential start racing through your head. You two could really hurt each other like this. No collateral damage. Shit - your ears are ringing; he hit you harder than you gave him credit for.

You nod, a little numbly - _yeah, it was good_ \- and call him ‘Eric’ for maybe the third time in your life ever, which makes him look like he’s going to hurl. He opened the fucking floodgates, so you slice your thumbnail into one of the wounds you left on his face and start digging. “But you’re gonna have to do better than that next time.”

Cartman was right, and it does kind of suck. With just spit and mutual inexperience, he comes too fast and you almost don’t come at all, and it’s too cold for either of you to get all the way out of your clothes, and he pulls your hair so hard that a chunk gets yanked out, and you try to kiss him in what you think is a sexy way but end up biting his cheek, in a not-sexy way. The third time he hits you is what makes you finish, head spinny, laughing a little bit, your fingers dug so hard into his arms you won’t be surprised if you left bruises.

So not necessarily a pleasant sexual experience, but it feels like an emotionally significant one. You clean each other up best you can afterward, Cartman looking the whole time both like he’s had a religious revelation and seen a dead body. “I can’t believe I made you cream your panties with just some light slapping…” he says, voice full of wonder.

You roll your eyes and shove your hand into his face. 

What you’re thinking about is this one time back in seventh grade when you and all the guys went camping at Token’s family lakehouse. A couple of you went out for a hike and Cartman tagged along, whining and eating chips the whole time. You and him got caught up in an argument so bad that you didn’t notice the others had left you behind until you were hopelessly lost. You wandered for hours, hollering at each other until the sun went down. You honestly thought you would die out there. The world got darker and smaller until it was nothing but the two of you, and the light from Cartman’s zippo. It felt like you were the only two people left in the entire world, stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere because of your terrible inability to ignore each other. Finally, Cartman stopped his bitching. He grabbed the back of your coat and trudged behind you, miserable and silent.

What you saw when you looked back wasn’t a monster, but a terrified little boy. Because that’s what he is when he stops all the kicking and screaming - a little boy who was never taught how to let anything go, or given anything solid to hold on to, so he holds on to everything so tight it suffocates.

But not you. 

It’s weird: being able to feel sympathy for something so fragile and destructive kind of makes you feel _human_. You’d never say that out loud, because it sounds dorky, and maybe betrays how deep into your psyche you’ve really let Cartman get, but you also have this feeling that if you gave up on him for good, it’d irrevocably hollow out a part of your life. It would take something from you that you’d never get back. So it only makes sense that you’d let him get this far.

You shimmy back into your pants and throw an arm around his chest. Snuggle into his bulk and soak up the warmth still lingering between you, as well as the warmth he’s giving off. You have no idea why he was so worried about freezing to death earlier when he’s got more insulation than a fucking manatee.

He slings an arm around your shoulders and snickers. “Whatever happened to it being a one-time thing, Susie Tsun-Tsun??”

“Don’t make this weird, Cartman.”

“You let me smack you around while my dick was inside you, I’d say we’re well past weird at this point, Kyle.”

“Don’t make me regret letting you do that either.”

“Soooo yoooooou... _don’t_ regret it?”

You give him a side-eye. His eyes are still puffy from crying, and from how hard you punched him earlier. Your heart goes _bump ba-dump. What the fuck_ indeed. “Not yet. But the sex endorphins haven’t worn off so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Oh yeah.” He laughs, high-pitched and fake and with all the bravado of a skinned grape. “Back… atcha… you, uh...” he falters.

"Go on," you say, a bit meanly. “Say dumb Jew. I know you want to.”

This _is_ a trick. 

“When is the last time I’ve called you a capital ‘J’ Jew when not explicitly and respectfully referring to your heritage in a context applicable to the situation at hand?” he demands.

“Eleven and a half months ago,” you answer easily. “Approximately ten minutes before I first let you touch my dick.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“ _But_! You _have_ called me: a Cultural Marxist, a sneaky rat, a natural born accountant, Woody Allen, an off-brand Trotsky and, oh yeah, you said I was a Jewish Princess last night, which is toeing the line pretty fucking close.”

He deflects: “Is this another one of those weird kinks you won’t admit you have? Like, are we gonna act out that one scene from The Night Porter, ‘cause no offense - while you’ve got the hips, you definitely don’t have the voice to pull off that Marlene Dietrich number.”

“Wh-what?”

You only understood about a third of the words that just came out of his mouth, but the anxious expression he makes tells you that it’s definitely something that would have pissed you off. “N-nevermind,” he sputters. “Wow, that storm is really going…”

It is. The frame of the car is shaking underneath you. You cuddle up closer. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

Cartman lets out a petulant huff. “Christ, I fuckin’ hate waiting…”

“Well,” you drag a finger down his chest. “I know something we can do to pass the time.”

“Again, Kyle? I can’t believe you’ve been hiding an insatiable cockhound beneath that thin veneer of contempt for the last year.”

“Not that, something better.”

He glances at you with naked curiosity, as if he honestly can’t imagine anything better than having a moderately okay-ish sexual encounter with you in the back of a car, which is so sweet that you almost consider giving him a break for once.

_Almost._

You take a deep breath and:

Later, his nose in the crook of your neck, Cartman asks: “So, do you wanna help those Resistance assholes out and go topple the US Government with me or what?”

You answer naturally, as if you’ve always been waiting to be asked this particular question by this particular person in this particular circumstance. “Sure. Why not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to Clyde. 
> 
> @ me at https://dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com/


	10. The Same Deep Water As You (is a great song)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hey, I wanna apologize both for the long wait between chapters, and for not delivering this chapter with the level of polish it deserves. i am - for very good and lifelong-dream fulfilling reasons, I promise - even busier irl than i was when i began this thing, so i just don't have the time to... write for fun. But I am extremely determined to finish this thing, so, let's do this!)

**FOUR YEARS AGO**

  
  


_Kyle doesn’t explain himself right away. He’s too busy fuming his whole head off, ginger temper running off the rails like an over-stoked freight engine. He’s surrounded by a ring of fire - both metaphorically and literally, since the entire fucking state is in the process of burning to the ground at the moment. He grinds both palms into his face, making one of those stupid, ugly Kyle noises, like someone trying to play a kazoo while gargling a mouthful of glass._

_“You're the one who stole the Necronomicon from Clyde and summoned the Eldritch Old Memes from the Hellmouth of 9gag!” he hisses. “Which, I remind you, is not the first time you've allied with a Lovecraftian God to destroy the Earth because we had a superhero related disagreement!"_

_Eric staggers to his feet, rubbing the giant welt Kyle just viciously punched into his eye with extreme prejudice. “Well, I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t fuckin’ turned Clyde against me when we were playing Marvel Movie Universe Monopoly last week!”_

_"Ooohhhh no,” Kyle wags a finger. “Don't you dare blame this on me! You totally overreacted about that."_

_“And having the CIA raid my house wasn’t an overreaction?” Eric demands. Kyle just crosses his arms and huffs all bitchy-like, indicating that he, indeed, does not think that calling the CIA to raid someone’s house constitutes an overreaction to losing a board game. “Kahl,” Eric grabs him by the arm. “They were going to take me to Guantanamo. I’ve already done hard time on the inside. I can’t go back!”_

_Kyle’s gaze inches down to where Eric’s thumb is dug into his bicep. He makes the same facial expression he always does when Eric touches him, which is also the same facial expression he makes when some well meaning birthday party host gives him a dessert with bananas cut into it and he knows it would be impolite not to eat it. Kyle Broflovski doesn’t care for ice cream cake, and he willingly eats celery of his own accord, and Eric has never hated anyone so fucking much._

  
  


_“Every fucking time something like this happens,” Kyle growls. “You always try and shift the blame. Have you ever thought that maybe -” he shoves Eric in the chest, as hard as his girly little arms can manage. Which is, stupidly, pretty fucking hard. “- just maybe you could not let things get to this point!? Maybe you could just stop!?”_

_Eric lurches backwards, boots skidding in the mud and snow. He’s stunned: by the ferocity in Kyle’s eyes, by how weirdly strong he is for someone the size and weight of a pool noodle. For some reason whenever Kyle shoves him around, his brain just checks out and starts screaming white noise. He shoved back hard once, and Kyle broke his fucking nose. He thinks about that sometimes. At night._

_Kyle’s shaking his head in that way he does. Like a pious, sanctimonious prick. “For once in your life Cartman, fucking stop and think about what you’re doing.”_

_“Uhhhhhhh,” Eric stalls, trying to crawl his way out of the mental flatline. “Don’t act like I’m the only one here’s who’s ever indirectly wiped an entire city off the map.”_

_Kyle gasps. The emotion that ripples across his face is so pure and dark that Eric is like, 92% certain he’s going to get his nose broke again. He licks his lips in anticipation._

_But Kyle doesn’t raise his fists. Or take a step forward. Instead, he just quivers angrily. “This has nothing to do with me,” he says quietly. Or Toronto, lays the unspoken words between them._

_Oh, so it’s gonna be one of those kind of fights then: the kind where Kyle just wallows away inside his self-made prison of Jewish guilt. That’s the only way to get Kyle Broflovski on the defensive, to turn those adorable little brainworms he likes to call his conscience against him. Flip that switch, Eric has learned, and you can get Kyle to do just about anything._

_Emboldened by the power-shift in the conversation, Cartman get his unbroken nose all up in Kyle’s personal space._

  
  
  
  


_The Hellmouth crackles and spits. From this far away, the warmth is just a few degrees short of pleasant. It smells like the first day of winter, when Mr. Marsh gets blackout drunk and starts burning all the unused junk from his New Year Resolutions in the garage. Of all the ways for the world to presumably end, this isn’t bad._

_Kyle is tensing up under Eric’s arm, making his cute little hands into even cuter little fists. “D-don’t be stupid,” he protests. Eric just holds him tighter._

_“I know it’s hard to admit, Kyle, but if you really think about it, I’m right. You know it in your heart to be true…_ we did this... and so, if it turns out the world isn't ending after all, we should both get grounded an equal number of weeks.” 

_Kyle looks at his hands. The flames are reflected in his eyes, which are glassy and round. He pulls out from under Eric’s arm and takes a step towards the edge of the cliff._

_“Oh noo, don’t jump~.” Eric calls out._

_“Shut up, fat ass. I’m not going to jump.”_

_He stands like that for a minute. Then another minute. Eric can almost hear the pretentious loops his brain is fishtailing into the parking lot of his skull, but Kyle continues to be silent for so many minutes that it starts to feel like an itch under the skin. What the hell is he plotting?_

_Eric takes a shaky step forward to join Kyle at the cliffside. Kyle’s eyes are still open all the way, but he doesn’t look pissed off anymore. He looks like he’s had a revelation._

_“... y’know,” he whispers, his knuckles brushing against Eric’s. “It’s weird but… I think that deep down inside, I always knew it’d end this way.”_

_The way Kyle’s voice sounds when he gets all soft and thoughtful evokes an emotion so potent and wretched that it makes Eric want to scoop his own eyeballs out. He swallows it down. He says: “I thought the special effects’d be a lot sweeter.”_

_Kyle laughs. “Yeah. Me too.” And then he - eyes still fixed on the giant, flaming gash raked across the landscape - reaches down and cups Eric’s hand in his._

_Eric stops breathing. He turns his face, just half an inch, and stares at Kyle’s face in the firelight._

_What. The. Actual._ Literal. Fuck!?

_What the fuck does Kyle think he’s doing!? Eric’s heart starts hammering so hard in his rib cage that he feels like he could die. In fact, he probably is going to die. Kyle is getting his… disgusting Kyle-ness all over his hand! They’re both wearing mittens, but he can feel it radiating through the gaps in the knit. Kyle has the driest, flakiest hands of any boy in the class._

_Eric thinks about them sometimes. At night._

_“Despite everything, Cartman, I guess I’m glad I don’t have to face the end of the world alone.” Kyle says this like it’s not big deal that he is literally murdering him through vile and malicious transference of his ginger cooties._

_Eric…_

_\- does not let go of Kyle’s hand. He turns his face towards the destruction below and lets his palm get sweaty. His voice falters when he says: “Er. B-back-atcha… you…” he pauses. Weighs his options. Adds: “- y-you dumb Jew.”_

_Kyle just smiles, and closes his eyes. And holds his hand. And exists, while the world burns around him._

_Holy shit, Eric realizes, numb and confused. Kyle... exists?_

_Something starts to turn over in his head, like a bulldozer shaking up new earth and smashing everything else in its wake._

_I don’t have to face it alone, Kyle said. It rings in Eric’s ears. He’s not here alone. Kyle is with him. They’re here together. Because - Eric understands with horrible, gut-wrenching clarity - Kyle is… he’s a..._ person? _Like, with his own thoughts and desires and shit like that. What the fuck._

_Suddenly, the entire history of their friendship crystallizes in a brilliant flashpoint of sharp, cogent images: Kyle wiping blood of his cheek. Covering his mouth when he laughs. His eyebrows bunched up when he’s doing long division, the way he chews on the end of his pencil until the eraser falls off. He drools in his sleep - and Eric’s watched him sleep maybe a hundred times, mostly at sleepovers, but sometimes while sitting on his windowsill at three in the morning while trying to steal or sneak something into his bedroom. Most recently, it was because he was swabbing one of Kenny’s used tissues inside his mouth so that he would get strep and miss the Debate Club semi-finals. That plan was operating on multiple levels of wheels within wheels, and also Kenny ending up dying from strep throat three days later, but the part of that month Eric remembers most clearly is running his thumb along the plush skin of Kyle’s lower lip. Kyle really wanted to go to Debate Club nationals. If someone had prevented Eric from attending an event he’d been looking forward all year, he’d pitch a fit. So what he did to Kyle was…_

_… bad? Was it… bad? It definitely feels…_ bad???? ?

_Eric doesn’t know what to do with this emotion. He wants to touch Kyle’s hair. He wants to shove him off the cliff. He wants to -_

_Hold his hand harder._

__Jesus Christ, I’m gonna be sick, _he thinks, covering his mouth with his free hand to smother the first dry-heave in its cradle. The Gingervitis is already setting in, and the symptom is non-consensual fondness for the carrier. Like how toxoplasmosis makes people desperate to clean up cat shit with their bare hands._

_Gotta play it cool. If Kyle knew how well his little ploy was working, he’ll never let him live it down._

_“Ha ha,” he taunts. “You’ve been holding my hand for like thirty seconds. Fucking gay. I always knew you were totally in denial, you repressed little bi -”_

_“Cartman.” Kyle doesn’t open his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, or I’m gonna break your nose again.”_

_Ah. That’s better. Eric sighs in relief, and takes a step closer._

“No, absolutely not,” you say, kicking snow off the tires of Cartman’s car.

“You didn’t even let me fucking explain!”

“I don’t have to. I don’t care if you know of some facebook ISIS recruiters, we’re not working with literal terrorists.”

“Uh, I hate to burst you cute little moral bubble, Kyle, but we’re planning to remove the President of the United States from his lawfully obtained position by using extrajudicial force. We are literal terrorists.”

“You… c’mon Cartman, you know what I mean. What we’re doing is different.”

“Why, because we’re white?”

You stop - hands braced on where the car window curves towards the roof - and shut your eyes. You can feel Cartman grinning at you: eyes half lidded, the ends of his mouth turned up like a cat. Yeah, you can clearly picture the look he’s making even before you raise your face to look at it. He’s got his arms crossed on the rooftop, chin cushioned on the pocket of fat where his arm presses together.

Oh good. He still drives you fucking insane.

He keeps going “Oh, Kaaahl, are yooouuu _raaaaciiiiiiist_? Terrorism is only terrorism if brown people are doing it, is that it? I can’t believe I have to be the woke one in this relationship.”

You take a deep breath. “Cartman.”

His face falls at the schoolmarm-esque bite in your tone.

“If we’re going to do this,” you say. “We’re going to do it my way. Understand?”

He stares at you for something like fifteen seconds, then pushes off the car so that he can round it and come loom over you. “You mean… bringing down the government, or…” he wiggles a finger back and forth between you. 

“Both,” you answer easily. 

“Hmm,” he replies. Amazingly he sounds completely neutral. “What if we called in some Antifa Super Soldiers instead?”

You raise an eyebrow. “No way you actually know a single person who would identify themselves as an anti-fascist.”

“No, but I know someone who does. He’d probably take a huge, steaming shit on my face if I tried to ask him, though. That’s where you come in.”

“Is this… compromise? Is that what we’re doing right now?”

“If your definition of compromise is you riding my whole entire ass into the ground like a hen-picking nanny, then yeah, Kyle, we’re _compromising_.” He takes a step closer so that he can fiddle with your hair. He bounces his finger off a couple curls, a look of queasy wonder on his face. “Goddamn. I can’t believe I get to do this without getting punched in the face. What the actual fuck.”

You can’t help it, you’re smiling. “I thought you hated my hair. Or is this a thing like with my nose and you only pretended to hate it because you used to jerk off while thinking about plucking it out strand by strand until I sobbed and begged you, personally, to baptise me into the Christian faith?”

He snickers and slides a hand around your waist, tugging you in. “Just assume that everything I’ve ever said I hated about you was either the result or cause of some highly specific sexual kink.”

“Euuugh.” Your protestations get swallowed by the puffy fabric of his coat. You feel and hear him take a deep, staggered breath. His nose is buried in your hair. “Uh. Are you… sniffing me?”

“Yeah. You’re disgusting. Smells like you’ve spent a week trudging around in a sewer and haven’t had a chance to shower.”

“You’re one to talk considering some of the smells that used to come out of you when you were younger.”

“That’s why I carry my _Xtra Strength Liquid Hasselhoff Cologne_ everywhere I go. You could stand to learn a thing or two about personal grooming.”

You set your hands on his chest and shove some space between you. “Wait? Oh my _God_ , is that why you do all that? To impress me with how much you don’t stink anymore?”

“Damn, Kyle, you accuse me of being self-centered but you seriously think the the entire fucking world revolves around you.”

“Not the _entire_ world,” you reply, leaving the hanging implication unspoken. The most stubborn, unmovable piece of shit in the whole goddamn universe, he called you.

He laughs, with no weight beneath it. “No, Kyle, I don’t do it to impress you. It’s ‘cause I gotta smell gay to ward off the chicks.”

“Right, because you’d be beating them off with a stick otherwise.”

“Uh huh. But they can all go fuck themselves becaa _auuse_ -” and he spins you around in the ankle-deep snow a few times - with all the fleet-footed grace of someone who just won regionals in their weekly salsa-dancing club - then slams you up against the car door. “I’ve finally got the only thing I want. And we didn’t even have to kill someone together for you to finally come around.”

“W-was that Plan A?” You wonder, tucking your fingers up under his scarf. You lost your mittens back on Bank Street while you were attempting to beat him to death, so the least he can do for you now is keep your hands warm. “Is that why you were so intent on convincing me to kill my dad?”

“Nooooot specifically. But if the opportunity presented itself…” He hesitates a beat. “Offer’s still open, by the way.”

“It’s not happening, fat ass.”

“Oh Kyle. You hopeless plebeian. No sense of rhythm, no sense of romance...”

“What’s so romantic about _killing_ someone together?”

He braces his hands on either side of you and leans in. “It’s the easiest way to make sure you’d never get away - a crime we’re mutually culpable in. No matter where you went, I’d have the key to totally fuck you over and ruin your life.”

“Yeah, but I could do the same to you, Cartman.”

“Exactly,” he murmurs, cupping your cheek. “Inextricably tied together. Forever, Kyle.”

“God, you’re so creepy,” you say, but what you’re thinking as he dips in to kiss you is: yeah, tied together like our fucking renal systems. The thought is as stupid as the kiss is suffocating. You throw your arms around his neck and yank him down, because you’re not gonna be caught dead getting up on your tiptoes to French him. When he said you were going to make him your bitch, you didn’t exactly say no. You can feel the reel cranking in, pulling taut. What makes you worry that you might be in trouble is how easy it is to fall into his aura, how easy it is to feel as possessive about Cartman as he feels about you. When you kiss, it’s like how it is when you fight: the whole world narrows to a point that can balance on the edge of a knife, only now you’re holding that knife together with him instead of against his throat.

Let’s see how long that lasts, you tell yourself, and shove him off you.

“Wanna go burn Washington D.C. to the ground?” You ask, showing your teeth.

“Why, Kahl, I thought you’d never ask.”

“- so hear me out: MS-13 -“

“No.”

“I said hear me out!”

“I have the same problem with the mafia and cartels that I do with ISIS -”

“What? That they’re comprised largely of disenfranchised peoples from marginalized ethnic groups driven to extremist violence by the brutal actions of the American Government? You’re really hitting the White Neoliberal jackpot today.”

You untuck your leg from the dashboard and kick Cartman in the arm. 

“Ow!” The car swerves. “What the fuck, Kyle! Do you want to die in a car accident!?”

“Oh come on,” you laugh. “There’s no one else around for probably a hundred miles.”

He sucks in hard and rubs his arm where you kicked it. “Fiiiine,” he groans. “No unrepentant murderers! But I’m telling you - the current head of the Sinaloa Cartel owes me her current position, and those guys do _not_ fuck around.”

“I’m sure they don’t. But we need to do this through something… _resembling_ legitimate channels.”

He angles a sideways look at you. “Really, Kyle?”

You pull a knee up under your chin and watch the endless sea of fir trees and unplowed highway. “As legitimate as we can get it. It needs to be the kind of thing people who still read _The Economist_ will accept. A soft revolution. A coup that plays nice to people like my parents who watch MSNBC very night.”

“Tsk, tsk. Here I thought you’d finally made a breakthrough, but you’re just as boring as ever.”

“What? Cartman, don’t tell me you want a real revolution.”

“Not unless I’m sitting at the top of the heap when all is said and done,” he answers easily, rapping his fingers on the steering wheel. A grin tugs the edge of your mouth.

“I _knew_ that Stalin costume wasn’t just for the Halloween Masquerade Ball!”

“I’ll have you know that Comrade Stalin was a gentleman and a poet, Kyle. I thought you’d be happy that I was investing in progressive role models. What - you want me to dig out the old SS uniform, because I -” He pauses, licking the cut on his lip. “Actually, now that I think about it, it would be kind of hot if -”

“No,” you say. “Don’t even finish formulating that thought, Cartman, I swear to fucking God.”

He clears his throat. “Right. So - no cartels, no Russian mob, and definitively _no_ sexy Nazi Hunter roleplay. Would it impunge your _unimpeachable morals_ if we at least pick up some homebrew explosives. I know a guy on the darkweb who’s legit, it not reliable.”

“Yeah, that’s sound fine,” you reply.

“Hella. We’ll swing by on our way to Washington.”

“ _Just_ the explosives though. If we do this the right way, we won’t have to shoot anyone. We might not even have to piss anyone off. Which means that you’re going to have to trust me and follow my lead. Got it?”

“Jesus Christ, Kyle, why don’t you just chop off my balls already.”

“Don’t be melodramatic Cartman. I don’t have to chop off your balls when I can just offer to suck them.”

He does a double take at you. The car swerves again. “What?”

“Y-you heard me,” you stutter, significantly less confident now that you have to examine the words that just came out of your. You stare as hard as you can out the front window.

“Uh… kewl,” Cartman says, also staring ahead with an expression that could almost be described as _academically thoughtful_. “I will… keep that in mind.”

“Y-yeah. Do that,” you respond, as you expire on the spot and your soul leaves your body.

“Achoo!” adds the backseat.

Cartman screeches the car to a halt. The two of you turn to look at each other, whatever weird energy you just evoked by obliquely promising a reciprocal sexual favour to a dude that you used to bitterly despise dispelled.

  
  


Of course it’s Butters. You can’t believe you both forgot about Butters.

“What the fuck are you doing in my car, Butters?” Cartman wonders. 

Butters puts a finger to his chin, eyes wide. “Golly, Eric, don’t’cha remember? You told me to hide in the car if anythin’ happened! Why, I’d almost left you guys for dead.”

“Well?” Cartman asks you.

You leave Butters on the side of the road twenty miles outside of Toronto with a bag of chocolate covered peanuts and fourteen dollars, cash.

To your credit, it only takes about five minutes for you to start feeling guilty about it.

You sigh. “Ugh. We have to go back.”

“Why the _fuck_ do we “have” to go “back”?”

“He’s gonna die out there, Cartman. Do you really want that hanging on your conscience?”

He boggles at you. “You’d feel guilty about killing Butters?”

You ground your palm into your forehead. Haven’t you learned yet? there’s no point bargaining with him. And you don’t really have to anymore, do you?

“Just do it.”

So, you go back for Butters.

The three of you drive in total silence for what has to be at least half an hour. You spend it staring forlornly through the impression in the frost you and Cartman made against the window when you were making out earlier. Butters totally got an eye and earful of the two of you making out earlier, which makes you feel… some kind of way. You’re frozen still in your seat, all stiff and wound up because you can’t shake the irrational paranoid feeling that any unconscious shift of your body is going to give away the fact that you let Cartman ineptly half-fuck you in the ass less than six hours ago.

Butters asks: “Are you two gettin’ eloped?” 

Which is basically breaking the tension like he just snapped a rubber band in his own face. “Butters. Why the hell would we need twenty pounds of c4 explosive, the nuclear launch codes and help from the Sinaloa Cartel to get married?”

You watch him rub the back of his head in the rearview mirror. “Well I thought it was some kinda lover’s suicide thing. Why, if that was true, Timmy was gonna win big in the bettin’ pool.”

“Wh-what -” your eyes snap wide and you whip around to look Butters in the eye. “What betting pool?”

He shrinks back. “U-um - the bettin’ pool about you an’ Eric gettin’ together? Almost everyone at school’s put bets in.”

Your fingers dig into the hand-rest. “The school had a -” and your voice pitches shrill. “- _betting pool_? About me and Cartman _fucking_?”

Cartman shoots you a sidelong glance. “Dude, you’ve never seen the betting pool?”

“You have??”

“Yeah, I put like ten bucks on ‘kidnapped by terrorists, who force us to do it at gunpoint’. That one was from Tweek, by the way.”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. Privacy really is a foreign concept in South Park. “What the fuck, Cartman.”

“I know. Sounds totally hot, doesn’t it? Tweek’s a little freak. No wonder Craig can’t quit his high maintenance ass.”

“No, it does _not_ sound hot! It sounds -” you throw your arms up in the air. “- horrific! And traumatizing. _Furthermore_ , it’s making light of the horrors inflicted on civilians in the middle east by Islamic Fundamentalist militias, which is a serious problem that you shouldn’t be _jacking off about_ , you insensitive piece of shit!” 

You poke him in the arm flab and he just goes _pfft_. 

“Whatever. I have never met a person more in denial about their obvious rape fantasies than you, Kyle. Let me remind you that you wouldn’t even kiss me unless I agreed to blackmail you into doing it.”

“You’re…” you press your lips together. “You are _definitely_ remembering that wrong.”

“Actually -” and he, eyes still on the road, starts fiddling with his phone where it’s plugged in to charge on the dash. “I’m remembering it exactly right, because I recorded it. Here, listen:” and he plays back audio from what you’ve been trying to avoid explicitly defining as your ‘first sexual experience’ for like a year now.

 _“Are you seriously asking to kiss me?”_ your voice quivers out of the phone speaker.

 _“Yeah. That’s what I’m doing Kyle. Stop being so fucking stingy.”_ Cartman-on-the-phone replies.

“Oh my God,” you say in real life, and cover your face.

“Listen to yourself,” Cartman snickers. “You’re voice is all _breathy_.”

 _“You're not going to… do… anything? Try to blackmail me?”_ you-from-one-year-ago breathes, all breathily.

“I-I was still shaking because I - thought I’d _choked you to death_ , you freak!” You fumble to shut the recording off, because you know what comes next. 

Cartman bounces a finger off his split lip. “Hmmmm, you might not realize it, but that is exactly what you sound like when you’re being fucked.”

“Oh… oh boy,” Butters sounds a lot like he’s seen a dead body, which you would know, because you and Butters have seen multiple dead bodies together. “If you two don’t mind, I’m just gonna… put my fingers in my ears and start hummin’ real loud so I don’t have to hear any more this conversation.”

“ _Loo, loo, loo_ ,” Butters hums as Cartman - after an artfully observed pause - sidles one of his big, fat arms up against you and asks: “How’s your ass?”

“If this is how you’re going to be,” you say, jaw clenched and eyes dead ahead. “We’re never having sex again.”

He shuts up and keeps driving.

America approaches in patches of purple and amber, just like the song goes. But you’re not really feeling - like the _song goes_ \- a ‘pilgrim beat’ pounding the walls of your chest, or very patriotic at all. Instead you’re rubbing the fabric of Christophe’s scarf between two fingers and thinking about some pretty pretentious shit. For example: the specific criteria one would use to define who a person is, deep down inside.

Like: who _are_ you? An American? A dumb hick who grew up in a little mountain town? Sheila and Gerald Broflovski’s son? Stan Marsh’s best friend? A fucking psychic? Apparently? Someone that a monstrous personality like Eric Cartman can be eternally and psychotically obsessed with? Which identity supersedes the other? What makes Ike your brother is shared experience, nothing that you were born with. What makes you a good person is… is…?

What makes a person good is that they do good things. That’s something you’ve always grappled with: you can’t just think good thoughts, you have to turn those thoughts into reality. And you’ve always thought the lines between good and bad were pretty clear, if not necessarily intuitive. You used to think, there is such a thing as a right way to actualize that goodness effectively; the spirit of your good intent, the efficacy of your good deeds, the impeachability of your good actions - when these factors align, that’s how you change the world.

But now you’re barreling down the highway listening to Cartman ( _between bars of pointedly crooning REO Speedwagon lyrics in your direction_ ) detail his master plan to bring down the Dictator In Chief of the United States. And, well - Cartman is still categorically and explicitly not a good person, but here he is, letting you harness his powers for the benefit of a hundred million innocent strangers. You never truly realized until this moment how much you relied on Cartman’s predictable ammorality to define your own behavior against, how much you used to go spiraling on those rare occasions he cut you loose. Yet, somehow working together always feels natural. The entire history of your relationship is like some comical Freudian nightmare: Superego and Id grappling over every petty squabble until it inevitably brought catastrophic implosion. So, synthesis really was the best outcome.

Okay yeah, that thing you just thought sounds pretty gay, but _Cartman’s_ the one who said he can’t live without you. You’ve only just figured out that you can live _with_ him.

He’s saying: “- which will stir up a - _peaceful_ , Kyle - riot. The thing about the Tesla drones is that they shut down their lethal defenses and bring out the pussy guns if they sense a white civilian within 500 feet. And with The Machine out of commission, there’ll be no way for them to switch designation.”

“That seems like a pretty serious oversight for a brutal government agency to make.”

“Yeah, well, their code is basically made of string cheese so they couldn’t override the protocol manually if they wanted.”

You rest your hand in your palm and stare at him. The morning light casts a halo around the crown of his hair. It really is amazing how he just glows at the edges sometimes, brimming with such horrible energy. “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“Haven’t I told you before, Kyle? I have big plans after high school, and none of them are gonna pop off as long as Mr. Garrison and The Machine are in the White House.” He looks at you, and flutters his lashes. “Don’t tell me you thought I was doing this _all for you_.”

You shut your eyes and smile. “Of course not.”

“Eugh,” says Butters, in the backseat.

You spend the whole day driving into the sun as it breaks through the clouds. There’s a couple people to meet along the way, some shit to pick up, and Butters has to take eleven whole piss breaks, so it takes til sundown to hit the Maryland border. It’s a crisp evening - blood orange sky, flurries scraping through the air. The three of you hitch the trunk of the car open and take an inventory of what you’ve got.

“Bombs, triggers, signs, eyeliner -”

“Eyeliner?” you repeat. Cartman whisks a tube out of the bag of supplies his dark web guy gave you and starts applying a flawless cat-eye in the rear window.

“Yeah. Its like what pirates do to keep the sun out of their eyes. It improves your vision, _Kahl_ , don’t you know anything?”

“Mmm-hmm.” You decide to just… leave that alone. You reach into the bag and start rifling through it until you find the lynchpin of your plan.

Cartman’s big “peaceful” idea for taking down the Garrison Administration involves hacking the voting network. The Federal Government seized voting from the State Legislators about five years ago, turning the whole thing over to a streamlined app. Vote from your phone, and D.C. gives you live updates over Youtube.

So of course, the Republicans were re-elected in two landslide victories despite Mr. Garrison’s 4% approval rating, and the fact that he’s not been seen outside the White House for half a fucking decade. Honestly, you wouldn't be surprised if he was dead. 

It doesn’t matter either way; you’re going to hack the network to change the hardcoded results of last week’s election, and then open it up to the internet so that all the _real_ hackers can leak the information to the press. You know from watching the last eight years play out that the Democrats probably won’t do shit about voter suppression no matter how solid the evidence is, but if you can “prove” that they actually “won”, then...

Well, then there’s at least a 5% chance they’ll finally move their asses out of Martha Vineyard to enforce the “rules”.

 _Because_ , Cartman said, _there is nothing Liberals respect more than due process_.

You turn the hack-chip over and slide the thumb drive with the chain-exploit on it out of it’s slot. Such a tiny thing, such an unpredictable outcome. Maybe you should stage a real revolution after all, ha ha.

“Should we really be doin’ this?” Butters asks quietly. “I mean… if we can figure that the vote was fixed, then someone can hack it the other way and find out that we fixed it in for the other party… w-well, I reckon that would just end up makin’ everything even more mixed up than it already is.”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” you say at the same time that Cartman snaps: “No one will find out if you keep your fucking mouth shut.”

The two of you glance at each other, and you laugh. Just a bit.

“Don’t worry,” Cartman assures you. “The only thing Butters is good at is keeping his mouth shut.”

“Eric,” Butters tsks. “Be nice.”

“I _am_ being ‘nice’!” Cartman crows, slamming the trunk shut. “In fact, I am being the nicest guy on the face of the fucking planet! I’m _magnanimously_ freeing the American electorate from the grip of a brutal dictatorship, and I’m not even charging for my services.”

“Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself there,” you cross your arms and lean against the car’s chassis. “All of this depends on whether or not Leslie and the Commander can take down the Machine. If that doesn’t happen, it’ll all be for nothing. And we’ll probably spend the rest of our lives in a prison camp.”

“As much as I’m flattered by your romantic fantasy of dying in a concentration camp together, Kyle, that’s not really necessary.” You open your mouth to object, but Cartman interrupts by whipping out his phone. “Come on,” he says, scanning the sky for a wifi signal.

You and Butters follow him up a crag, frost and leaves crackling under foot as you go. The forest canopy thins and dying sunlight filters through the leaves in kaleidoscope patches of red and purple. Cartman sets his phone on the ground.

“You ready?” he asks.

“Uh, for _what_?”

He grins, and presses ‘dial’. The line rings - four, five, six times - and a holographic projection pops up: fuzzy and cracked down the middle from where you smashed Cartman’s face into the glass. It’s a man; cloaked, armored, breathing heavy and through his mouth as he glooms down at you with his arms crossed.

Cartman spreads his arms theatrically as he stands: “Meet the leader of the Resistance. This is it: the biggest, bossiest loser of the entire fucking loser organization!”

No. Fucking. _Way_.

“P… _PC Principal_?”

“This is a private emergency line. You have ten seconds to explain how you obtained this number before I cut the connection.”

“PC Principal! Wait -” you stumble forward, point at yourself. “It’s us! Your old students from South Park Elementary!”

PC Principal removes his sunglasses and the hologram stutters. He leans in towards the screen on his end and you can see that his left eye is missing, and the right has been replaced with a robotic prosthetic.

He was… wearing his Ray Bans over an eyepatch. _The more things change..._

He blinks a few times. “Is that… Kyle Broflovski?”

“I… y-yeah!” Your hand hangs kind of lamely in the air. “Wow. I thought they’d put you in a prison camp! After the whole thing with… with the book depository, and the protest at Colorado State… the news said that -”

He rears back with a flourish. “The news reported that they put _PC Principal_ in a prison camp- but I’m not PC Principal anymore. I’m... _Social Justice Warlord_!” He pauses - dramatically - then adds: “… and I would appreciate it if you did not call me by my dead name.”

“Oh my God,” Cartman mutters, _not_ under his breath.

“Oh. You’re here too.”

“Yeah, I am, bitch. Are you fucking blind now?”

“Eric Cartman, ‘bitch’, when used in a derogatory manner and not to refer strictly to the breeder’s classification of a female dog is a misogynistic microaggression.”

Cartman covers his mouth and gasps. “Oh no? Is it really? I had _noooo_ idea!”

“Yes you did! Furthermore, you are purposefully framing the accusation of ‘blindness’ as an insult. I’ll have you know that a sight-challenged American would be able to perform my current position as leader of a continent-wide insurrectionist force just as well as, if not better than, I do. I would request that you stop using language that you know is inflammatory.” 

“What are you gonna do? Beat the shit out of me? All the way from whatever underground Canadian bunker you’re cowering in? I’m so _intimidated_.” Cartman pretends to quake in his boots

“Cartman…” you shoot him a warning look.

“Kyle, please -” he pinches his fingers together. “Let me have this.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t mind him. Listen - I don’t know how much time we have and there’s a lot to talk about. I’ve been in contact with the Resistance and they -”

“- are currently moving into position to take down THE MACHINE’s hard-drive at its home mainframe in Neo Silicon Valley, yes I am aware of the Operation.”

“We want to help.”

PC Principal studies you for a moment. You can hear his robot eye whirring over the static. Whatever he sees does not impress him. He slides his sunglasses back on and sighs. “I appreciate the thought, Kyle, and I wouldn’t want to imply that you are any less able than my personally trained Social Justice Warriors, but... you’re on the wrong side of the continent.”

“No, not The Machine. We want to help you take down…” you swallow hard. “- the _President_.”

“Just… the two of you?”

“The two of us and Butters,” Cartman corrects.

“Hiya,” Butters chimes in.

“We can do it,” you insist.

His eyebrows go up to the hairline. “... I’m going to need you to explain.”

So you explain the plan. 

“ - you see, if we get them both at once, there’s no chance for the government to consolidate! Or for The Machine to adjust public opinion!”

PC Principal strokes his goatee. “I gotta say. If you three can pull this off, it’d actually be extremely helpful. You see - there’s a security protocol that operates out of the White House. If we blow up THE MACHINE’s mainframe without having the President enter the release code that disconnects it from the system, it’ll just escape to the web. So we were going to trash the internet.”

“Bad plan, dude,” Cartman chides. “That would turn the people against you. People love the internet more than they love freedom.”

“We know that,” PC Principal replies. “But we don’t have any other choice! No one who’d be able to sway the President can get near the White House as long as THE MACHINE’s running.”

“Because of Doctor Smith’s control chip?” you ask softly.

He looks surprised. “How do you -”

“D-Doctor Smith won’t be a problem anymore.” You make fists so hard it hurts. “And _I_ can convince the President to release the security protocol.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because I -” and sigh as you drone it out. “I’m a powerful psychic, and this won’t be the first time I’ll have used my psychic powers to make Mr. Garrison do what I want.”

PC Principal furrows his brow. “You... you sound pretty certain of that.”

“I am.” You flex your hands open. The marks your nails left start to burn. “If you’re the leader of the Resistance, then you’ve probably read my file. You know that I’m the only one who can do this. I mean - I _have_ to do this. Otherwise things are just going to keep going to shit. So… let me do it. _Please_.”

He mulls on that. Literally mulls on it, chewing the inside of his propped open mouth like a cow chewing cud. “What about him,” he asks finally, pointing to Cartman with his chin. “You aren’t afraid he’s going to screw you over?”

“What the hell did I do!?” Cartman blurts out. “I’m just standing here!”

You grin. “I told you not to worry about him. Tubby over there got all the betrayal out of his system yesterday. He’ll behave himself.”

“Kyle Broflovski…” PC Principal slants forward until his face is taking up the entire display. “What did I tell you about denigrating individuals on the basis of their weight?”

Your expression falls flat. “... are you fucking serious?”

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” Cartman affects a falsetto, mocking your manner of speaking. “He’s speaking from a place of _love_ , right sweetheart?”

You freeze. Wh-what?

Cartman tucks an arm around you. “Don’t be so hard on poor Kyle just because he’s having a difficult time coming to terms with his fat fetish.”

PC Principal goes pale. “Wait. Are you two… to… gether?”

“Mmm. Yes. Why?” Cartman’s voice is thrumming triumphant. “Does our tender, filthy and highly fulfilling homosexual love make you _uncomfortable_?”

“N-no, of course not!”

“Really? Because it sounds like you’re not totally on board with the idea of a person-of-size such as myself getting some of that sweet, sweet, fully circumcised loving.”

“Of course not! I give my, er, full blessing to this… beautiful interfaith, inter-natural-body-types union. On an unrelated note -” PC Principal starts fumbling with the controls on his communicator. “I have some important Resistance business to take care of. I’ll t-talk to you when the Operation is over!”

When he’s gone, you spin on your heel. “ _Cartman_! You -”

“What?” he demands. “Are we a _secret_ , Kyle? I didn’t know I was signing up for another twelve months of being your shameful mistress.”

Your mouth hangs open. Of everything that just went down in that conversation, that was the _last_ thing he said that was ticking you off. It blindsides you, because You have _no_ idea how to answer that quesrion.

Butters does, however. “Gee, if you two are a secret I sure wish you’d do a better job of keeping it in front of me.”

You cover your eyes. “Butters, go sit in the fucking car.”

“Er… o-okay,” he says, a bit distantly, and you listen to him crunch his way down the hill. Was that a natural response, or did you just psychically influence him? How can you tell the difference? God, you really are going to have to second guess every interaction you have for the rest of your life, aren’t you?

You spread your fingers and peer through the gaps to see Cartman grinning at you - cheek to cheek, unbearably fond.

“What?” you mumble.

He touches the tip of your nose. “You’re so cute when you’re pissed off. I really can’t help it.”

Well, _almost_ every interaction.

“That’s the last one fellas,” Butters says, dusting off his hands. You’ve been placing bombs all along the weak spots of The Wall 2.0. That would be, the wall the US Government built around Washington DC after the construction of the first Wall along the Mexican border collapsed into chaos and brutal sectarian violence. You never thought you’d actually see it in real life; it always seems so imposing and sinister on the news, but in real life it’s not anything more extreme that what you might find around your average Walmart nowadays.

If your plan goes off without a hitch, all you need to do to finally bring down President is a blow a hole in this wall big enough to let in an angry mob. From here, you can see the silhouette of Alexandria down the river. People still live there, right under the sweaty palm of this oppressive Administration. A front-row seat to has got to have left them pretty angry, right? For the first time in nearly a decade, you’re going to put your faith in the people and hope you don’t eat shit in a blind trust fall.

Cartman swings the duffle bag off his back and zips it open. “Nah, we’ve got one more bomb. The biggest, fattest bitch of them all! You could even call iiiiiit the -” he stalls the wind up and winks at you.

“Don’t do it Cartman,” you caution.

“Do _what_?”

“Call it _‘The Kyle’s Mom’_ of bombs.”

“Well,” he shoves the last bomb into Butters’s unprepared arms. “I’m not the one who said it, am I Kyle?”

“What’s it for?” Butters asks, staggering under the weight.

“The White House,” Cartman answers, peeling a length of electrical tape off the roll and using it to pin down a couple stray wires. 

Butters’s eyes go very wide. “W-wait. We’re gonna… we’re gonna _blow up the White House_!?”

“N-not with anyone in it,” you reply, defensively. “It’s for after PC Principal’s SJWs get the media into the city. Like a big fireworks show. It’s uh… symbolic? Washing the slate clean so that a new era can begin.”

“Also,” Cartman adds. “We needed collateral.”

“Right. If something goes wrong and it looks like we’re going to get killed anyway… then…” you mime an explosion with your hands. “Mutually assured destruction.” _Ha ha_.

“G-Geeze Louise…”

“Luckily -” Cartman holds a finger up. “Mr. Garrison’s a pussy, and he’ll crumble on the spot if he thinks for a second you’re serious about murdering the shit out of him. Which you should be able to sell easily, Kyle, because you’re fucking insane.”

You shoot Cartman a brief, joyless smile. Yeah, that’s right: you’re _crazy_. He’s crazy. This whole fucking country is crazy, and if you’d all just admitted you were nuts years ago, it wouldn’t have come to this.

What you say is: “Okay, with that out of the way… how do we get inside?”

The three of you turn to crane your necks at the arc of The Wall. No doors, lined with barb wire and impossible to climb; you passed an entrance to the north, but it was an underground bunker, sealed tight.

“Um, I have an idea…” Butters is raising his hand. “Why don’t we take the subway?”

You shake your head. “That’s how Christophe got me out of the city - trust me, it’s a mess down there. We’ll get lost going in circles and we’re on a strict time-table here. If we’re late turning off The Machine, PC Principal's people are going to get slaughtered. There’s got to be a more direct route.”

“You don’t remember the layout of a place you were in less than a week ago?” Cartman asks, disbelieving. “How complicated can it be?”

“Ah, you see… that’s because...” You mumble the rest out. “I was kind of, sort of, pretty fucking drunk.” The thing is, you don't really want to go back there. Your feelings about it are all over the place: cognac and Christophe and Cartman, and how it was less than five days ago that you could say with absolutely certainty that psychic powers did not exist. Yeah, you've walked in a big, damn circle over the past week, but the idea of literally retracing the first footsteps of that journey seems... profane, somehow.

"Well, I knew _that_ already Kyle. That's why I suggested it." Butters smiles serenely and taps his head. "- 'cause I wasn't."

You turn look at him, _slowly_. Suddenly, you remember it: him, blocking your way in the train car, the victorious schadenfreude in his voice when he claimed to have an "echo" of your powers in his... in his frigging "mind's eye", or whatever. Your brain is crashing into a brick wall right now, because to gracefully accept all the other parts of this crazy ride you've been on, you have to - for the sake of not appearing to be a hypocrite - accept this too. Butters just smiles harder.

“Oh,” you say. Because what else is there?

Butters guides you through the subway with a confidence and expediency that gets your paranoia sirens singing at a pitch so high it’d probably kill a whole kennel of dogs. How much of your journey did he “see”? Definitely your cognac-infused pissing marathon, probably all the shit that happened with Beverly and Gord Tremblay-Levesque. Your ill-advised “tryst” with Christophe? Oh God, Butters has probably seen your dick. Through your own eyes, which somehow makes it worse.

You try very hard to focus on something else. Like the fact that Cartman spends the entire trip whining like his life depends on it.

“Jesus fuck, it smells like ass down here. I’m gonna have to ritually drown myself in a pool of vinegar when we get home.”

You elbow him in the side. “It’s not that bad, Cartman. Stop being such a big baby.”

“Of course _you_ don’t think it’s that bad. You can’t stand the idea of dudes peeing in the shower, but you loved rolling around in shit as a kid because of your coprophilic relationship with Mr. Hankey. Who, I remind you, turned out to be a total fuckin’ psychopath.”

“Now, Eric, that ain’t a very nice way to speak of the dead,” Butters says, swinging his flashlight around a sharp corner. “It’s only been a few months now since he went an’ flushed himself. An’ as we all know, when someone dies, they officially ain’t cancelled anymore.”

“Yeah,” you agree sadly. “And you know what… I’m still not entirely unconvinced his wife didn’t fake the suicide in order to get her hands on the insurance money...”

Cartman snorts. “Pfft, well yeah. I mean, that’s what I would do.”

You level a flat look at him. “Uh huh.”

He lets out a very belabored sigh. “Not to you, obviously! If I were married to a _literal piece of shit_ , Kyle. Christ Almighty.”

“Shoosh!” Butters snaps, waving a hand to silence you. You shoosh. “Do you hear that?” he asks.

You tip your head and listen as hard as you can. You’re out of the subway proper, and into the tunnel network that Christophe dug out over the years. Butters is right, something’s changed: you can hear wind. Whistling, not rumbling, which means you’re close to the surface. Butters breaks into a jog, peels around two more corners until the passageway opens out into a sewer. There’s a manhole above you, cracked open two inches to show the clouds churning across the sky.

“Wow. I never thought I’d say this, but... good work, Butters.” 

“Aw, shucks,” he demures, pulling himself up the first rungs of the ladder. “I’d say thank you, but I actually don’t give a single flyin’ poo what you think, Kyle.”

Any offense you could have possibly taken from Butters’s dismissal is quashed but the sight that awaits you on the surface. If Toronto could be described as a ghost town, you’re not sure what to call the remains of Washington D.C.. A corpse? A _skeleton_? The diluted stain of bloody skid-marks on a pair of underwear once worn by someone who died of Ebola?

It’s a straight shot between where you’ve emerged and the White House, and there’s nothing filling up that space except rows and rows of scalped buildings, trees stripped of their leaves, cars abandoned at long-dead intersections. The Washington Memorial stands above the wreckage: pristine, untouched and looking more like a metaphor for the nation’s collective penis anxiety than ever. Here stands Ozymandias, King of Kings. He had the biggest, fattest cock in recorded history.

“Golly,” Butters warbles. “There’s no one here…”

Cartman cups a hand around his ear. “I can’t hear any drones either. What the fuck.”

“I thought there’d at least be… guards? The military?” You wrap your arms around yourself, glad for the weight of Christophe’s rifle and its whole three bullets on your back. “This feels… wrong.”

The sun’s barely hit the horizon, but the windows in the White House are completely black. What the hell has even been going on in there these last few years?

Cartman strides forward, pushing your hat down over your face as he goes. “Would you rather this place was crawling with soldiers. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth just because it’s not kosher. C’mon.”

“Gifthorse… not kosher?” you adjust your hat and skip a step to catch up. “C’mon, Cartman, that one doesn’t even make sense...”

Your bickering peters out fast as you amble through the vacant streets. The wind washes across the vast, flat streets. The sky is so grey that the rising sun barely sifts through. There’s a second - smaller - wall built around the White House itself. It’s poorly maintained: chipping apart at the seams and coated in propaganda. Nothing stops you from walking all the way there out in the fucking open.

You find a ladder and send Butters up to the battlements to take a look.

“What’d you see?” you ask, in hushed tones, when he gets back.

“Uh…” he scratches his head. “There’s a drone makin’ the rounds, and a guy guardin’ the front door.”

“‘A’ ‘guy’,” you repeat. “Like… singular? _One_ whole ‘guy’?”

Butters nods. “I crawled ‘round the whole wall an’ he’s the only one I saw. Looks bored out of his poor, little head too.”

You set your chin on your knuckles and twist your mouth into a hard line as you think. “This is… weird. It’s weird, isn’t it? What if we’re missing something super obvious here?”

“Or we’re not missing anything at all and this is exactly as stupid as it looks.” Cartman shrugs. “I mean, if it’s true that The Machine placates the populace, and the government is so defunded it can’t even make its own murder robots, why would you put any effort into maintaining the Capital? If no one gets in and out, no one can post shit about it on twitter.”

You stare at the wall, and the foreboding advertisement scrawled across it: _Through Ordering on Amazon We Can Achieve True Societal Harmony!_

“Yeah, okay,” you nod. “ _Okay_. I can take care of the guard, but we have to do something about that drone. I’m in the system as a dangerous, escaped prisoner, so it sure as hell isn’t going to interpret the two of you as civilians.”

Cartman strokes his chin thoughtfully, then says. “... hey. Hand me Frenchie’s gun for a minute.” 

Your hand whips up and wraps around muzzle instinctively. “... no,” you reply, narrowing your eyes.

“Kyle, don’t be difficult. That thing’s a high caliber rifle. It could put a fucking hole in a cement slab, a drone’ll crumple up like tinfoil if you hit it straight on. Which I will.”

“Cartman, don’t be stupid. There’s so many things wrong with this plan.”

“Excuse you, but I am an excellent shot.”

“There’s only three rounds in here!” you point out. “If you miss all three times, we’re screwed.”

“Then I’ll be careful!”

“I -” you hesitate. You really don’t want to hand Cartman the gun, but it has nothing to do with the logic of the situation. 

“What’s wrong?” he taunts, like he’s reading your mind. “You don’t want me touching your precious summer fling’s penis extension?”

You jaw tightens. “You can’t have a summer fling in November, moron. How are you still this jealous?”

“ _Please_. I’m not jealous, Kyle, I’m just concerned with our survival. I’ve made it this far without getting seared in half by one of Elon Musk’s fail-bots, and I’d like to keep it that way. Anyway, this wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t thrown my uncle’s pistol into the fuckin’ Canadian sewer system!”

You raise an eyebrow. “... I thought you said that the pistol was empty.”

Cartman’s eyes twitch open and into panic mode. “Uhhhhhh -”

“You’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me,” you snarl. 

"Kyle don't overreact before you hear all the facts!"

"Oh. Then you're saying there's something _to_ overreact about!?"

"N-no!"

"Holy shit. Cartman, you just - _augh_! You're such an _asshole_!" This revelation is hitting you in the chest, just to the right of where your heart is. Is it possible to be simultaneously surprised while also having the darkest part of you _perversely_ and completely validated? Because that's what you're feeling. “I should have _known_ \- I should have know that you would say _fucking anything_ … just to… just to - oh my God, I can’t believe that I let you...”

“Are you trying to accuse me of bending the truth a little bit to get in your pants?”

“Yes!” you shout. “I'm not _trying_ , retard, that _exactly_ what I'm accusing you of!"

Cartman gathers himself. Brushes down his coat. Presses his hands together and sets them in front of his face. Calmly and with saintly patience, he says: “The gun was empty, but I had some spare bullets in the car.” That’s how you know he’s lying.

“Oh really? Why don’t we go back and check!? Wanna put some money on whether or not they’re actually there just to make it a fair bet?”

“In case you forgot, we’re on a time-table here, Kyle. _Your_ timetable.”

“Okay, fine. Then let’s make a bet for when all this is said and done with! If the bullets are there, we forget we ever had this conversation, but if there’s nothing in the trunk, then… then I really am never talking to you again!”

“Er -” he swallows

“Ah-ha!” 

“That unfortunately will not be possible seeing as I dumped the bullets on the side of the highway while we were still in Canada. B-because you said that you wanted to do this peacefully. _Kyle_.”

“Oh, fuck you, Cartman. You did _not_.”

“No, fuck _you_!”

“I said it first! I told you that if we were going to do _this_ , you had to follow my lead! Following my lead means respecting me enough to not lie to me about whether or not you were ready to put a fucking _bullet in my throat_!”

“Is this your idea of an equitable relationship?” Cartman asks.

“It’s my idea of an equitable relationship with _you_ , you fat, manipulative fuck!”

“Can you two wrap this up?” Butters says. “If the two of you keep screamin’ your lungs out like this, it won’t matter who had the gun or the bullets or the wh-whatever, ‘cause that drone’s gonna hear the ruckus you’re makin’ and come send us all straight to heck.”

You cross your arms. Cartman calculates his odds.

“Okay, yes,” he admits. “I _liiiiieeeeed_ about the gun not being loaded. But not about the… other stuff.”

You say nothing. Assess his posture, the light reflecting off the surface of his eyes, the puffy bruise around his eye.

“C’mon Kyle. What the fuck would I even gain from lying about all that shit, huh?”

You clench your jaw. 

“What?” he asks, so smarmy that you feel like you could punch him right in the nose for the first time in twenty-four whole hours. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Goddammit, Cartman,” you mutter, eyes rolled up towards the sky. It’s true: he gained exactly nothing except the privilege of awkwardly losing his virginity to you. Which, sure, is definitely something you probably shouldn’t have trusted him with because he could use that in any number of ways to ruin your life. But if that was the endgame, why would he even be here? He’d never willingly walk into a situation that could potentially put his life in danger unless he really did mean that shit about getting off on working together.

“ _Well_?”

Your hand wrenches around the rifle. Cautiously, you shrug it off your shoulder. “... _fine_. But if you waste all three bullets, I swear -”

“You swear nothing,” Cartman says breezily, snatching the rifle. “- because we’ll all be fuckin’ dead.”

So you crawl up along the shittily constructed battlements, beneath the cover of yards of gnarled wire and the mysteriously thick, ashy air. There is indeed “a” “guy” guarding the door. You ignore him, and round the wall until you find the single drone meandering near the back of the grounds.

“Watch this,” Cartman says, in the same tone of voice he used to use when you guys were kids and he was a half second away from jumping off something two stories high. He raises the rifle, lines up the muzzle, sticks his tongue out, and takes a shot.

It rings out so loud in the suffocating silence that the sound itself bowls you over. You take a dive, brace your hands between the coils of barbed wire, then raise your head to see that Cartman…

… fucking _missed_.

“What the _fuck_!” you yell, as the drone twirls around on its axis. _Wee-oooh, wee-oooh_ it goes, re-aligning course and scanning the White House yard with its grainy, lazer-red sights.

“I was close!” Cartman yells back. He raises the rifle again, but you grab it by the barrel and start yanking.

“Screw this! You’re gonna get us both killed -”

“Um, y-you mean, he’s gonna get a-all three of us killed -” Butters interjects weakly.

“- _and_ waste the rest of the bullets!”

Cartman tugs back, tucking the gun under his armpit and jamming his palm in your face to shove you away. “What… the fuck do we even _need_ the fucking bullets for!?” The drone’s gaze locks on and it starts whirring towards the wall.

“It doesn’t -” you lose grip of the gun and start wapping at Cartman with both hands. “- matter! Stop arguing and give - me - the -!” you get a grip on the stock and put your entire weight into “- _gun_!”

Unfortunately, Cartman has put a lot of work into attaining the approximate size and density of a black hole, so all that happens is that you skid back on your ass in the shallow frost, still clinging to the stock. “What the hell is you problem, Kyle!?” Cartman demands.

Behind you, Butters says: “Ummmmmm…” very loudly.

In front of you, the drone goes: _ZZZKRRRRRAAAAKKKT_ as it blows a hole in the ground with its heat ray.

You freeze, and Cartman wrests the rifle from your grip.

A distorted voice emanates from the drone’s speaker:

“ATTENTION. YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF A͋͒ͨ͏̺̞̣Ņ͚͚̜̞ͧ͋̇̃̃ͤ͛ͭ͊͜ͅ ͔͛͑ͫ̎̇O̴͎͍͌̎͂B͓̹̘̲̬̻͌͐͋ͬ͗̉ͅJ̨̤̦̟͙ͮ͂ͫ͢E̴̡͈͙̻̬ͪͧ̽͑͊ͨͨ̉̚ͅͅC̣͔͈͉̩̚̕T̬̘̉ ̳͍͇̗̬̅̄ͮ͋ͪ̽̀ͅO̸̵̗̪̩̖͗̽͋͞ͅF̵̴̻̗͈̺̍̿ͪ ̷͍ͪͭͭ͟V͌ͦͨ͒҉̷͏̤̞͓̠͙̰̠̼̠Ä̟̗̝̹̦͖̽ͅL̵̬͍ͥ̃̏͑͊ͦͅƯ̞̲̓̾̎͗͛ͧͮ̔͘E̢̼̮̼͕̝̪̺̩̿ͤ̾̽ͫ̕ ̨̫̻̲͓̬̣͊̎ͤ̈ͬ͝ͅT̸̝̱̩̙̊̕͠Ȍ͉͚̘̥̼̮͕̓͠ ̵̙̲̹ͫͮͪ̓̓͋ͦ̓ͅT̙̥͆̾͒̓̀͑͢H̲͓̦̪̿͌̃̆̾E̵͖̖̫̩̗̜͂ͭ̓̍ͧ̇ ̷̡̪͚̖̠̻̄͛͑ͧ̉̆͗̊ͅƯ̤̪̗͈̻̏ͧ͛͐̋̚Ṣ̡̹ͪ ̜̰̝̓ͪ͛͂ͫ͌̓̕G̲̠̩̼̤̘̜̼̳ͯͩ̃̊̎̉ͩ̚͡Ȯ̡̞̜͔̏V̨̧̞̪̲̬͔͑ͣ̈́E͈̭̬̳͓̳̣̾̇R̸̵̞̗̘̝̪ͯͭ̏ͪ͗̅͗̀̏N̡͚̜̦̍̉ͯ̽̊M̶̸̳̯̱͚̖͎̳̞͕ͨ́̾̽͑͡E̳͖͍̪͚ͣ͂̈͂̉ͣ̓͛͟N̷̜͈̈́ͫͪ̍͋ͥT̶̨̩̳̣̠̩̉̌̆. THIS HAS BEEN YOUR WARNING. THE NEXT SHOT WILL BE LEATHAL UNLESS YOU SURRENDER THE O̴͎͍͌̎͂B͓̹̘̲̬̻͌͐͋ͬ͗̉ͅJ̨̤̦̟͙ͮ͂ͫ͢E̴̡͈͙̻̬ͪͧ̽͑͊ͨͨ̉̚ͅͅC̣͔͈͉̩̚̕T̬̘̉ ̳͍͇̗̬̅̄ͮ͋ͪ̽̀ͅO̸̵̗̪̩̖͗̽͋͞ͅF̵̴̻̗͈̺̍̿ͪ ̷͍ͪͭͭ͟V͌ͦͨ͒҉̷͏̤̞͓̠͙̰̠̼̠Ä̟̗̝̹̦͖̽ͅL̵̬͍ͥ̃̏͑͊ͦͅƯ̞̲̓̾̎͗͛ͧͮ̔͘E̢̼̮̼͕̝̪̺̩̿ͤ̾̽ͫ̕ ̨̫̻̲͓̬̣͊̎ͤ̈ͬ͝ͅT̸̝̱̩̙̊̕͠Ȍ͉͚̘̥̼̮͕̓͠ ̵̙̲̹ͫͮͪ̓̓͋ͦ̓ͅT̙̥͆̾͒̓̀͑͢H̲͓̦̪̿͌̃̆̾E̵͖̖̫̩̗̜͂ͭ̓̍ͧ̇ ̷̡̪͚̖̠̻̄͛͑ͧ̉̆͗̊ͅƯ̤̪̗͈̻̏ͧ͛͐̋̚Ṣ̡̹ͪ ̜̰̝̓ͪ͛͂ͫ͌̓̕G̲̠̩̼̤̘̜̼̳ͯͩ̃̊̎̉ͩ̚͡Ȯ̡̞̜͔̏V̨̧̞̪̲̬͔͑ͣ̈́E͈̭̬̳͓̳̣̾̇R̸̵̞̗̘̝̪ͯͭ̏ͪ͗̅͗̀̏N̡͚̜̦̍̉ͯ̽̊M̶̸̳̯̱͚̖͎̳̞͕ͨ́̾̽͑͡E̳͖͍̪͚ͣ͂̈͂̉ͣ̓͛͟N̷̜͈̈́ͫͪ̍͋ͥT̶̨̩̳̣̠̩̉̌̆. ALL HAIL THE MACHINE.”

“An ‘object of valueto the American Government’?” Cartman mimics, amused.

You drag a palm down your face. “Do we really have time for this? Just take the fucking shot.”

Cartman blinks, somewhat effeminately. “Oh. _Now_ you want me to take the shot? I’m confused, Kyle: do I give you the gun, or do I shoot the drone?”

“Oh my God. I always knew I was going to die because of how fucking stupid you are.”

The drone glides towards you, in measured, humming gaits.

“YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO SURRENDER THE O̴͎͍͌̎͂B͓̹̘̲̬̻͌͐͋ͬ͗̉ͅJ̨̤̦̟͙ͮ͂ͫ͢E̴̡͈͙̻̬ͪͧ̽͑͊ͨͨ̉̚ͅͅC̣͔͈͉̩̚̕T̬̘̉ ̳͍͇̗̬̅̄ͮ͋ͪ̽̀ͅO̸̵̗̪̩̖͗̽͋͞ͅF̵̴̻̗͈̺̍̿ͪ ̷͍ͪͭͭ͟V͌ͦͨ͒҉̷͏̤̞͓̠͙̰̠̼̠Ä̟̗̝̹̦͖̽ͅL̵̬͍ͥ̃̏͑͊ͦͅƯ̞̲̓̾̎͗͛ͧͮ̔͘E̢̼̮̼͕̝̪̺̩̿ͤ̾̽ͫ̕ ̨̫̻̲͓̬̣͊̎ͤ̈ͬ͝ͅT̸̝̱̩̙̊̕͠Ȍ͉͚̘̥̼̮͕̓͠ ̵̙̲̹ͫͮͪ̓̓͋ͦ̓ͅT̙̥͆̾͒̓̀͑͢H̲͓̦̪̿͌̃̆̾E̵͖̖̫̩̗̜͂ͭ̓̍ͧ̇ ̷̡̪͚̖̠̻̄͛͑ͧ̉̆͗̊ͅƯ̤̪̗͈̻̏ͧ͛͐̋̚Ṣ̡̹ͪ ̜̰̝̓ͪ͛͂ͫ͌̓̕G̲̠̩̼̤̘̜̼̳ͯͩ̃̊̎̉ͩ̚͡Ȯ̡̞̜͔̏V̨̧̞̪̲̬͔͑ͣ̈́E͈̭̬̳͓̳̣̾̇R̸̵̞̗̘̝̪ͯͭ̏ͪ͗̅͗̀̏N̡͚̜̦̍̉ͯ̽̊M̶̸̳̯̱͚̖͎̳̞͕ͨ́̾̽͑͡E̳͖͍̪͚ͣ͂̈͂̉ͣ̓͛͟N̷̜͈̈́ͫͪ̍͋ͥT̶̨̩̳̣̠̩̉̌̆ .”

“Half a minute to decide Kyle: do you want me to give you the gun, or shoot the drone?”

“I -” is he really doing this right now?

“- NINETEEN, EIGHTEEN -”

“I - I -” is he _seriously_ playing a game with your lives in some attempt to make a point about this being an equitable relationship?

“Tick tock, Kahl~.”

“- SIXTEEN, FIFTEEN -”

“K-Kyle, please just t-tell him to shoot the gun,” Butters begs.

You grind your teeth together so hard it shakes your whole skull. You are gonna kick his fat ass from one end of the neighbourhood to the other the moment you get home. Maybe in front of everyone you know, just like old times.

“ - THIRTEEN, TWELVE -”

Every word scrapes a layer of enamel off your molars: “Cartman, I… want you…”

“- TEN, NI -”

_Goddamnit._

“I want you to… _shoot the fucking drone_!”

“That’s more like it,” he smiles, hoists the gun against his thigh. Says: “Hey babe, kiss for good luck?”

“Not a chance in hell,” you reply.

“- SIX, FIVE -”

He does it anyway. A quick, chaste peck to the lips. Your face contorts into a nauseated look of mortification, but your heart does actually go _‘bump-ba-dump’_ , which is both the stupidest and most sincere emotion you’ve had in a while.

Cartman - ever the drama queen - raises the rifle and takes a clear, confident shot that slices through the drone’s center just as it beeps out the word ‘ONE’. You feel - nanoseconds before the bullet lands - the air heating up as it primes the blast. The explosion nearly blows your hat off, the drone got so close, and you watch the two halves of it crunch together and plummet towards the ground with a blank expression, not really sure how to process the last minute of your life. 

_ka-BOOOM_! it goes when it hits the lawn. The smoke and fog flares orange all around you.

You and Cartman turn to stare at each other. It takes him four whole seconds to start gloating.

“Like I said, Kyle: I’m an _excellent shot_.” He flaunts the rifle’s muzzle at you, and you swipe it back.

“I _know_ you did that on purpose,” you scold, slinging the gun over your shoulder again. “And I’m still super pissed, by the way.”

“Then why are you grinning, asshole?”

Butters clears his throat.

“I-I would really appreciate if w-we got a move on, fellas. You might not remember this, but I didn’t actually volunteer to come on your little suicidal honeymoon, so I sure would like it if we got this over with as soon as possible so I can g-go home an’ get my concussion properly looked at.”

“Do you have another ‘idea’?” Cartman mocks. “Because if not, we’re stuck on this wall for now.”

“A-actually,” and Butters turns his head away, almost shyly. “I was thinkin’... what if we hijacked one of the cars down there? An’ we _rammed_ it straight into the White House gate? I mean… it don’t look reinforced or nothin’. I bet it would break like b-bitch under one pimp slap from one of those military trucks...”

The three of you look at each other, then towards the gate. It does look like it could work, and there’s a shit ton of military hardware and vehicles just strewn around the wall, stripped of weaponry, but still armored to the teeth. 

“B-besides,” Butters adds. “Who _hasn’t_ wanted to perform a lil’ social disobedience an’ vandalism in the nation’s capital? Might as well, while we have the chance...”

“Lit,” Cartman says.

So you do that.

You pile into a Marine Corp humvee and Cartman spends ten minutes trying to “expertly” “hotwire” the console until you find the keys in an abandoned boot under the front seat.

“Wanna do the honors?” you ask Butters, tossing him the keyring.

Butter fumbles with the keys. Fumbles them into the ignition too. But when the engine starts humming, he grins and jams his heel on the gas as hard as he can. _Ack_! you go, clinging to the back of the driver’s seat as the humvee rams into the antique gate at 60mph. The gate cracks wide open like a hot glass being run under ice-cold water and the three of you jolt forward when Butters stomps the gas. You smack your head on the seat.

“G-Gee wiz,” Butters breathes, his hands visibly shaking on the wheel. “I-I guess I’m officially an accomplice now…”

“H-ha, yeah.” You blink, look at your hands. Crawl over the storage compartment so that you can ease the door open and pour yourself out onto the White House lawn.

“Oh nooo _oooo_!” is what you hear the moment your boots hit grass.

The lone security guard is ambling around the corner, flashlight in one hand, hat clenched in the other. He’s got a couple light cybernetic augments around his left eye, but otherwise appears to be a totally normal member of the Secret Service.

“Shiiiit,” he whines. “First the drone, now this… the President is going to ram my ass so hard I won’t be able to sit for a month. What in the hell are you kids doing here!?”

Cartman swings out of the humvee and whispers to you. “Want me to put that last bullet in his knee?”

You glare at him. “What? _No_.”

“I said his knee, Kyle, not his head.”

“I heard what you said. Look just - hang back and let me take care of this okay.”

“What are you gonna do? Tell him that we’re orphans here for the school tour?”

“I’m - no, Cartman, that hasn't worked since we were nine years old. I’m going to -”

“Use your _psychic powers_ on him?”

“Y-yes. Sort… a? I know how to talk to these guys. How do you think I got out of captivity yesterday?”

Cartman rolls his eyes, and waves you off. You clutch the rifle to your chest - just for comfort - and stride your wobbly legs across the parkade. 

“Uh, hey, sir. Sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but my friends and I were wondering if we could…”

The security guard comes right up to you and looms tall. Your palms are sweating even though it feels like it could snow.

“- g-get a tour of the White House? For our school project?”

He looks you up and down: takes in your dirty clothes, your unkempt hair, the gun in your hands. He tosses a glance over your shoulder, at where Cartman is hovering a couple feet back holding a giant detonator. His eyes crawl towards the wall, where Butters is sitting in the humvee. The engine is still running.

He scratches his head. “... er. Sorry, kid, I don’t think we run those tours anymore.”

You try your best to look sincerely surprised. “Are you sure? We came all this way…” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure. Look, I’m not really supposed to let anyone in here, especially not civilians. Here -” he digs a phone out of his pocket. “Let me call your parents and they can come pick you up.”

“No, you can’t call my parents!” you squeak. You can’t help it - it’s an automatic response to someone suggesting that they contract your mother.

The guard peers at you through the panes of his sunglasses. “Why not?”

“We’re orphans!” you blurt out.

Behind you, Cartman makes a noise that sounds like a spit-take.

“Orphans…” the guard repeats, deliberate, but confused.

“Y-yes. We’re orphans, which is why it’s so important that you give us a tour of the White House. We’re lost without a strong father figure in our lives! We need help from the President - a guiding hand to keep us off the streets and out of a life of crime!”

Christ, this is stupid. You _sound_ stupid. Actually, who you sound like is Cartman. This is exactly how he would have handled this situation except with, you're loathe to admit, significantly more _panache_. He'd probably call it panache too. He's probably thinking that right now, six feet behind you: _Kahl is fucking this up with his distinct lack of panache_. Doctor Pradesh’s comment about you having the aura of a good liar boils away inside your head. If only she could see you now.

The security guard looks pointedly unimpressed. He tips his head to one side and twists his lip so hard it looks like his mouth is gonna turn upside down. Dammnit, why isn’t this working? 

“I’m sorry kid. That sounds rough, but you’re not even supposed to be in the city.”

You dig deep into your emotional well: Doctor’s Smith’s brains on the floor. Butters's unearned smugness. Cartman’s pathological inability to tell the fucking truth. The complete dissolution of the American Social Contract. “It’s fine. L-like I said, we’re just trying to gather sources for our finals -”

“No, it’s not fine. In fact, if you don’t leave immediately, both of us are going to end up shoveling shit in the New England work camps. So turn your little tush right around and go back the way you came in.” 

Your left eye twitches. “Little... tush?”

“Wait - _waaaaait_...” And it suddenly dawns on him. “How _did_ you get in?" he demands. "This entire area is sealed tighter than God’s asscrack. Hey - you aren’t orphans at all, are you? Why, I’ll bet you’re radical antifa, here to assassinate the President! I have to warn him!”

“Oh, fuck this.” You crank back the rifle and whack the guard across the head.

“Ow! That _hurt_!” he says, so you whack him again. And again. And a third and fourth time until he keels over and crumples, unconscious, to the ground. 

You knew it. Psychic powers are fake and gay, adults are dumb and the only effective form of political movement is direct action. You give his body an extra kick for good measure. Right in his _little tush _.__

____

  
  
  


Butters pops his head out of the humvee. “Is it safe yet?”

You snatch the guard’s keyring as you step over his body and approach the White House’s giant, columned facade. The door falls open with a thunderous clang that fills up the entire foyer.

“It really shouldn’t be so easy for teenagers to break into the White House,” you mutter, passing your foot over the threshold. The physical threshold, as well as the metaphorical one. You press your eyes shut, take a deep breath. _Here we g_ -

Cartman shoves past you. Like, literally - he pushes you out of the way with enough force that you stumble forward a few steps.

“Stop being so fucking portentous, Kyle. We have work to do.”

“Did you mean ‘pretentious’, fat ass?”

“No.” Cartman whirls around on his heel. “I meant _portentous_ : ominous, apocalyptic, prophetic. Not that you aren’t pretentious as well.”

“Yeah, Kyle,” Butters huffs as he passes by. “Don’t you know _anything_?”

You follow Cartman and Butters down the dark, ostentatious hallways. Your eyes track past the tattered curtains, the dust-caked furniture, the wallpaper yellowed from years of disuse. You run a finger along a marble column as you walk by and the trench you leave in the grime is a quarter of an inch thick. All the portraits of former presidents have been brutally defaced; their eyes gouged out or burnt, their mouths squiggled over with red marker. Bill Clinton greets you around a corner, a big, fat dick spraying white-out cum all over his face. If the situation weren’t so critical, it would be hilarious. If it weren’t so absurd, it’d be horrifying. As it is, it’s… it’s…

It’s: well, _what the hell were you expecting_?

“Right here,” Cartman says, wheeling to a stop. He starts digging in his pocket for all the shit he needs to set up the radio receiver for the _“your mom”_ of bombs. “Okay, so here’s the plan. Butters - there’s a suicide bomber vest in the bag. You’re gonna use it to strap the bomb to yourself.”

Butters’s eyes go wide. “I-I… I’m gonna what in the _what_ now!?”

Cartman doesn’t look at him. He’s peeling the plastic casing off a length of wire. “The vest is equipped with a camera and a dead man’s switch. You’re gonna wait in the basement until we call, then you’re going to act like you’re ready to blow yourself up.”

“U-uh, not to derail the whole operation here, fellas, but wouldn’t it be a whole lot simpler if we just… put th’ bomb in the basement by itself? Especially since we’re plannin’ on blowin’ up the White House anyway. Why, golly, that seems like it’d be cuttin’ out the middleman all together…”

You and Cartman glance at each other. Why does Butters always have to make things difficult?

“No,” you say. “See, Butters - you are the middleman.”

“But _why_ me?” he implores.

“Because,” Cartman explains. “Mr. Garrison knows that I would never sacrifice myself for something as stupid as saving the country. But it’s pretty frickin’ easy to believe that _you’d_ go off the deep end and become ‘An Hero’.”

“Yeah, no offense -” you add. “But you’ve kinda got the psychological profile of a school shooter.”

“Gee, you two sure had a lotta discussions about me while I was out on m-my pee breaks…”

“C’mon Butters. You owe us for not leaving your ass to freeze to death on that Canadian highway. You gotta contribute, otherwise what was the point of dragging you all the way here.”

Butters hunches his shoulders, utterly defeated. “Ah, well. I suppose I can’t argue with that…”

“Excellent! I knew I could always count on you!”

“Cartman, wait -” you grab his arm before he can peel off to mess around with the wiring in the wall. “On second thought, this is stupid -”

Butters’s eyes light up.

“ - Butters shouldn’t be holding a dead man’s switch. What if he drops it by accident?”

Cartman smacks himself in the forehead. “You’re right. _I’ll_ take care of the detonator. Okay, new plan: Butters, you wait in the basement until we come get you.”

“... but I still g-gotta wear the bomb?”

“Yeah.”

“An’... an’ what if it all goes sideways?”

Cartman claps him on the shoulder. “Then I guess you get fuckin’ blown up, brah.”

“Aw… aw hamburgers...”

Cartman hums to himself as he works. Butters stands in the middle of the hallway, rocking back on his heels and staring into space as he cradles the bomb in his arms like an infant. You drift along the hall, tugging open a curtain to get another look outside. From this angle you can see the front entrance of the city; the triple gate, framed on either side with 100mm turrets. God, you wonder if those even work.

“Hey, Cartman,” you ask, suddenly thinking of something. “Can I borrow your phone for a minute?”

He looks up from where he’s prying an internet jack open. “What for?”

“I wanna call Stan.”

“Why the fuck do you want to call Stan?”

“Uh, because he’s my best friend and he’s probably worried about us. Did you guys even tell him where you were going? Or that you were leaving?”

Cartman and Butters exchange a _look_. 

“I…” Cartman drags the pronoun out, “dropped my cat off with him after Kenny sprung me from the psych ward.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, come on, Kyle,” Butters says. “What was Stan gonna do? Be real sad an’ cynical about the political situation? An’ then _choose_ not to vote about it?”

“Anyway, it was Kenny’s idea not to tell him,” Cartman insists, wrenching the plug casing out of the plaster. “So don’t get all pissed at me.”

“You can’t blame everything on Kenny just because he’s dead.” You give Cartman a light kick in the ankle, and hold you hand out. “Now hand over the phone.”

Cartman grumbles, but he gives it to you. “Don’t -” he warns you. “- drain the battery. We need it for the plan.”

“I know, I know.” You scroll through Cartman’s recent messages, looking for _‘Hippie Asshole’_. Your thumb pauses when you hit the last message you sent Cartman before blocking him a week ago.

O… kay.

You angle a curious look at Cartman, but he - for once - is not paying even a little bit of attention to you.

Right. Sure. You dial Stan through video chat and wait, anxiously, for him to pick up.

His face appears after six rings. “What the fuck do yo -” he starts, but his expression transforms the moment he realizes it’s you. “H-holy shit,” his voice cracks. “Kyle, oh my God dude, y-you… you’re not dead!”

You can actually feel your whole face light up at the sound of his voice. “Yeah, dude, I’m not dead!”

His mouth does a couple weird contortions: through relief, irritation, confusion, and then relief again. Finally, he lets out a haggard sigh and flops down on his bed. “Where the hell are you?”

“Uh,” you turn your back to Cartman and Butters and sweep the phone’s camera around the hall. “The… White House?”

“With... Cartman? And _Butters_?”

“Yeah, we’re…” you say the next part all in a rush. “Helping an army of antifa super-soldiers and political radicals with lame super powers take down the President and overthrow the current administration so that the Democrats can put some safe, boring, bureaucrat in the White House again?”

“Whaaat!” Stan bolts up. “I can’t believe you guys went to dismantle the US government without me! What the hell!?”

You snort. “Oh, please, Stan. You don’t even believe in voting.”

He snorts right back. “Oh yeah, like _you_ believe in radical political action. Didn’t you use to call yourself a ‘Family Guy Liberal’.”

“In seventh grade! Jesus, do you just have a part of your brain dedicated to remembering every stupid thing I’ve ever said?”

“Yeah, dude,” he says. “I love you, but you say a lot of stupid shit and someone’s gotta keep you honest.”

Your heart does a weird flip-flop at that, suddenly remembering all that shit your subconscious drudged up regarding Stan in your wacky out of body experience back in the bank vault. Was that really only a day ago? You feel like a different fucking person.

You wander away from the group and lean against the wall, pulling the phone up close to your face so Stan can hear your whisper. It's dark on his end too, but the diffuse light from the LED screen is like a lighthouse on a foggy night. “Uh… speaking of honesty…" you hunch up your shoulders. "This is going to sound so dorky, and also a dumb thing to fixate on considering everything that’s going on, but when I get home, you and I need to… I dunno. Split a joint or something and have a long, _real_ talk? Because I haven’t been very honest with you lately and I have a _lot_ to tell you.”

Stan tips his head. Studies something in your expression. “Oh no,” he says. “Don’t tell me. You fucked Cartman.”

Your face fissures into a strained half-smile. What the fuck? How could he tell? “Um.”

“Oh my God,” he runs a hand down his face. “You did it. You actually did it. You seriously had for-real sex with Eric Cartman.”

Your eyes raise to the ceiling. “Okay. Yes. I did. But that’s not what I was talking about, so can we not hyperfocus on this? I’m kind of in the middle of instigating a coup right now.”

“Right, right, okay.” He shakes his head, then continues to hyperfocus on it. “Dude. This is so fucked up.”

“It’s not that fucked up. You made out with Token’s cousin from Montana at a party once, and she was one of those weird horse girls. At least I _know_ Cartman.”

“No, I meant…" he massages his jaw. "Man, I can’t believe you lost your virginity before I did.”

“... whyyyy… _not_?”

“Because I always thought -” Stan makes a few aimless hand gestures. “‘C-cause, y’know… I always thought that I was…” he whispers it: “- the _cool_ one.”

You stare at him. “Really, Stan?”

“Well cooler than you and Cartman, at least. So I guess since you guys lost it to each other, it doesn’t really count.”

“No. It definitely counts.”

“That bad?” he chuckles.

You keep staring at him. His smile melts under your gaze. 

“Oh, shit, was it actually bad? Kyle, I was just kidding.”

“No, that’s not it…" Your eyes slide off the cellphone screen. _Are we a secret_ , Cartman asked you. It feels like everything that happened in that junked station wagon last night took place in a different dimension. That certain atmosphere that gets conjured up when you and Cartman are pouring all of your energy into each other... like being on the plateau of a black-hole... It felt _so_ good to give into it, but you haven’t had any time to consider whether or not it’s compatible with the real world.

“Please don’t tell me it was some kind of mind-blowingly hot experience or whatever," Stan pleads. "I’m still trying to wrap my head around all this and I think learning that Cartman is some kind of sexual savant would probably destroy the last of my will to live.”

“No, that’s not it either,” you murmur, running a finger down the faint bruise on your cheek. You can feel Stan staring at your super hard from three time zones away.

“Oh, I see,” he says. “You have… like, _feelings_ about this.”

“Yes, Stan, I have _‘feelings’_ about losing my virginity to our childhood friend who has tried to kill me multiple times. I have no idea how you figured that one out.”

“I’m just joking around, Kyle, you don’t have to be so sa -”

Your eyes snap to the phone. “Stanley, I swear to God if you use the word ‘sandy’ in this conversation, I’m going to hang up right now.”

“Okay, okay. I just -” he blinks, looks miserable suddenly. Runs a hand up under his hat as he lets out a long, shaky breath. “I just want to know that you’re okay. That all this crap that’s been going on with you and Cartman is… it’s not… my fault, right?”

That one sucker-punches you. _What_? You gawk at him. “Uh? No offense dude, but why do you think this has _anything_ to do with you?”

Stan sets his phone down so that he can make some truly emphatic hand gestures. He only talks with his hands when he’s not totally thought through what he’s about to say, and then he does it a _lot_. “Look - last time we talked you said all that stuff about not telling me anything because I’m always prioritizing your “shit” over mine. And you seem so… _tired_ all the time, dude. It’s just like when we were kids; whenever you and I fought, you’d always go running to Cartman. So it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit like I caused this. Like I turned my back for two seconds and you just fell onto Cartman’s dick.”

“I did not _“fall onto Cartman’s dick”_ , Stan.”

“Okay,” he backtracks. “Bad phrasing on my part. But you know what I mean. Did you start spending more time with him because I wasn’t there for you? Because you were sick of picking up after me?”

It takes you a minute to figure out what to say. You push off the wall and pace to the other side of the hall, chewing the inside of your mouth. You hadn’t realized that Stan felt this way, mostly because it’s a totally stupid, irrational way to feel, right?

 _Well_ \- you do a quick journey down memory lane through every fight you and Stan have ever had. Maybe not _that_ stupid. Also, the correct response to this is probably not to belittle Stan’s feelings. _The way you always do_ , you scold yourself. 

Inhale. Exhale. You say: “I admit, I was pretty pissed off at you at the time, but that’s… a whole separate thing. With me and Cartman…” you glance at your free hand, where your knuckle is nicked from punching Cartman in the teeth. “I think this would have happened eventually anyway. I think it’s good that it happened this way. If it hadn’t, we might have done something really bad to each other…”

“Worse than him giving you AIDS?” Stan deadpans.

“Yeah,” you say.

“Worse than you trying to get him killed by Somalian pirates?” he wonders, skeptical.

“Yeah,” you say again.

“Worse than him making you become his slave and eat his farts for two weeks in order to keep peace in the Middle East?”

“Yeah.”

“Worse than you trying to get him detained in Guantanamo Bay when we were twelve?”

“Yeah.”

“Worse than him trying to sell your body to a Russian University for study while you were still alive as part of his ninth grade International Affairs project?”

“Yeah.”

“Worse than that time you arranged the suicide of twenty unconvicted pedophiles on live T.V. just to get one over on him?”

“Yeah.”

“Worse than when he was going to throw you in a pit of lava because our stupid prank about making him ginger backfired and he decided to ethnically cleanse the planet of all non-gingers?”

“Yeah, Stan, worse than all of that.”

Stan gapes at you. “Like _what_?”

“I… I don’t know.” You’re still working through whatever the fuck emotion it was that made you ask him if he’d ever thought about raping you. Ten minutes after that he was crying. Cartman was right: it’s a lot to unpack. “Something with really, really awful collateral damage.”

“Aren’t you literally in the process of bringing down the American government, or did I mishear the beginning of this conversation?”

“That’s not collateral damage, Stan,”

“How is it not?”

“Because…”

  
  
  
  


And you do. After saying all that out loud, after hearing Stan’s voice. You’re a hundred steps away from your goal, and you meant what you said: you know _exactly_ how this is all going to play out.

“Okay, _what_ is going on with you? Did Cartman like, turn you commie with his dick?”

You roll your eyes. “Cartman’s not a communist, Stan. He’s just into the idea of gulags and the phrase ‘Five Year Plan’.”

“If something can’t be done in five years, it’s not worth doing!” Cartman calls out from the other end of the hallway

“See.”

Stan shrugs, and makes a noise of defeat. “Fine, fine, I believe you. Y’know,” and a ghost of a smile traces across his face. “It’s good to see you passionate about something again. It… it’s been a long time.”

You close your eyes. “Yeah. It has. It’s pretty messed up here at the moment, but I just have this… _feeling_ that things might really work out this time.”

“Then go save the world, dude,” Stan says, sniffling a little. “Just make sure it’s not a suicide mission, or I’m gonna be pretty pissed at you.”

“More pissed than when I chose the X-Box over the PS4, and then we had to play Call of Duty on X-Box for six years?”

“Ha - no, of course not. That, legit, was the worst fucking thing you’ve ever done to me.”

You hang up, still grinning, and slide Cartman his phone back. He makes a big show of wiping it off on his pants. “Eugh. I can’t believe you just made out with Stan through my phone after busting the shit out of it last night. What next?”

You tip your head at him, thoughtful. “Y’know, Cartman, I’ve never offered to suck Stan’s dick.”

He does a double take at you over his shoulder. 

“What I’m saying is that you don’t have to be so fucking insecure about my relationship with him.”

“I’m not insecure,” Cartman sniffs.

“Yes you are, fat ass. About literally everything.”

“Well, Kyle,” he sing-songs, going back to his bomb set-up. “- maybe I wouldn’t be so insecure if you didn’t ceaselessly fat-shame me every minute of my nubile, teen life.”

“Cartman, I’m being serious. I know you’re just envious because you don’t have a friendship like me and Stan’s, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped taking that out on Stan.”

“I don’t need a friend like Stan,” Cartman grunts, pushing to his feet. “I have _Butters_.”

“Y-yeah,” Butters cuts in. “Eric has me.”

You quirk an eyebrow at the two of them. They’re gesturing to each other. “... don’t you two hate each other?” you ask.

“Yes,” they answer, effortlessly and in perfect harmony.

“Actually,” you put your hands on your hips. “I’ve always wondered about this. Why do you guys always hang out if you hate each other so much?”

“Because he does what I tell him to,” Cartman says. “Butters, hand me the fucking pliers.”

Butters sighs like he’s Sisyphus pushing the entire planet up a hill, but he digs in his pocket and hands Cartman a pair of pliers. Cartman cackles and uses them to snap half the wire off his makeshift receiver. “Ahhh, you see that, Kyle? Perfect, unflinching _compliance_. I bet you don’t get that from Stan.”

You watch him jiggle down the hall, spinning the pliers around one finger as he goes. You turn to Butters. “Not to shit-stir when we’re standing on the precipice of bringing down the foundations of Western Society, but why do you let him treat you like that?”

Butters glowers at you. “Oh, what is this? Now that you two are all lovey-dovey, you wanna take responsibility for all his behavior?”

“What? No, I -” you pause, whisper: “- w-we... we’re not _‘lovey-dovey’_.”

He scowls.

You recover. “L-look, I know how to stand up to Cartman. But you just let him walk all over you.”

“Is that so? Well, Kyle, I didn’t hear you standin’ up to him when he said it was a good idea to put me in this here suicide bomber’s vest, so I guess that makes you a big, fat hypocrite as usual.”

“I’m a hypocrite!?” you shoot back. “ _You_ could have just said no. Butters, that’s the thing I don’t get about you. Why don’t you ever just say no?”

Butters sets down the bomb and starts buckling himself into the suicide vest. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Just lets that hang in the air as he literally straps a bomb onto his chest because Cartman _told him to_. Your lip slowly curls until it’s hitched up to your nostril. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, I don’t like Eric much,” Butters says. “But I understand him. An’ I understand you, Kyle.”

“What. Because you, allegedly, spent some time in my head you think you can psychoanalyze me now?”

Butters shakes his head. “No. It’s ‘cause I’ve known you all our lives. I see more than people think. Y’know, Kyle, not everyone’s like you. Not everyone can go around changin’ all the things they want to change. You’re always actin’ so helpless and hard put upon because you can’t make the world the way you want. Well - most people can’t even make th-their own gosh-darned lives into what they want. That’s how this happens -” he sweeps an arm out, across the window where the curtain is still pulled back an inch. “If nothin’ you do is makin’ anything better, then you start to wonder what it would feel like if y-you j-just went an’ made everything a whole heck of a lot worse instead. It’s only natural when you’re really an’ truly helpless than you start to crave a lil’...” he stumbles over the last word. “- a lil’ _chaos_.”

 _The natural instinct of human beings_ , Christophe said, _urges us towards destruction_. Coming from his mouth it sounded tragic and romantic, like something from a book you’d skim in an AP English class, and so it also sounded fake as fuck. Butters says it with such folksy matter-of-factness that a full-on chill runs down your spine.

“Do you think that this is natural?” you ask, horrified. “Do you think it’s just what was _bound_ to happen? What the hell, Butters.”

“Now, don’t go puttin’ words in my mouth,” he tutts. “All I’m sayin’ is that it’s a whole lot easier to feed that hunger than it is to give people a little hope an’ change. An’ I’m not the kind of person who thinks that I can control that hunger, because if you take control of this, Kyle, you gotta take responsibility for it. An’ that’s fine - you get somethin’ outta controlling it. The rest of us…” he clips the last strap on the vest closed, and _leers_ at you. “- well, sometimes... we just wanna be along for the ride.”

Cartman pokes his head around the corner. “Hey fags, wrap up the knitting circle. We’re on a strict schedule here!”

Butters’s ominous demeanour flips off like a lightswitch. “Coming Eric!” he calls over his shoulder. To you, he chirps: “You can pretend not to understand all you want, Kyle, but I think that you of all people should know _exactly_ why I hang around Eric Cartman.” 

He disappears around the corner.

You stand in the empty hallway for a very long time. “Huh,” you say, to no one at all.

You send Butters off and pick through the ruins of the of the offices where White House staff used to work. The hallways are strewn with half-shredded documents and the detritus of what looks like the heroic last stand of a bunch of pencil pushing interns. You sent the flashlight with Butters, so Cartman’s lighting the way with his cell-phone, turning everything phantom blue.

“This is kinda anti-climactic, isn’t it?” you say. 

“It doesn’t have to be climactic,” Cartman responds. “Because we can tell everyone whatever the hell we want after the fact.”

“We’re not telling anyone about this, Cartman.”

He sighs. “You are _determined_ to not let anyone have even a single second of fun, aren’t you?”

You reach it: the foyer of the Oval Office. It seems small. Feels normal. You cross to the nearest lightswitch and try to flick it on. Still, nothing. You raise your chin and study the patterns on the ceiling. There are bullet holes trailing up the curvature of the wall in multiple directions, years old.

You whistle. “Wow. This is where they used to host those stupid celebrity executions, isn’t it?”

Cartman’s eyes pop open. “Shit. Give me a sec, I need to observe a moment of silence for Carly Rae.”

“Are you serious?”

He holds his hands up in prayer. “As serious as I’ve ever been about anything, Kyle.”

You give him his moment of silence and take another careful pace around the hall, toeing the edge of a crusty four-by-four foot bloodstain cascading out from beneath a barricade made of office furniture with one boot. You set Christophe’s rifle down and stick your finger into a bullet hole to see how deep it goes.

“How long has this country been deciding who lives and dies based on twitter engagement?” you wonder in disgust.

“This country has been killing people based on what gets the public off for centuries before twitter fucking existed. What the hell do you think America _is_?”

You glance over your shoulder. “Do you really believe that?”

“Uh yeah. Why else would I do the shit that I do if I didn’t think there was free reign to get away with it? Do _you_ believe “justice” actually exists?”

Your vision flickers down, to where your pant legs are bunched up around the lip of your boot. There’s a splash of dried blood there. It could be from anything, but you suspect it flew out of Doctor Smith’s head. 

“I do now,” you say quietly.

Cartman gives you an inquisitive look at that, but you don’t elaborate. 

Instead, you ask: “Hey - remember that time you tried to shove me out a window?”

His expression warms immediately. “Hmm- if I’m remembering correctly, Kyle,” he sways close. “- and I am - I was more specifically trying to shove you out of _my_ window. You were illegally trespassing on my property that night and so I was justified in doing anything I wanted to you under the statues of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws.”

You hold up a finger. “First of all: Stand Your Ground laws only apply to deadly force with a firearm, not launching someone out a second story window. Second of all:” (two fingers) “Colorado doesn’t have Stand Your Ground laws. Third of all:” (and you poke him in the chest). “- you complaining about me breaking into your room in the middle of the night is less like casting a stone in a glass house, and more like firing a rocket launcher into the Burj Khalifa.”

Cartman blinks at you. “Did I say I was complaining?”

Oh.

“Right,” you flush. “You’ve been in love with me since forever, so waking up to me tumbling in through your window at 2AM was probably like a wet dream come true.”

“Hey - I never said that I’ve been in love with you -” and he does quotation marks around it. “ _‘Since Forever’_. Some ego there, Kyle, making an assumption like that. Not everything I do or think is about you.”

“Is that so? That was the night I burned down the State Book Depository -”

“I -” he points at you. “ _Remember_ what night it was. How could I forget - I’m the only one involved in that mess who didn’t get in trouble.”

Yeah. He gave you the means and the method to accomplish it, and you - throughout all those hours of community service and restless nights wondering if you’d just gotten PC Principal fucking killed - kept good to your word to not implicate him if he helped. That was two years ago. At the time, you weren’t entirely certain why you didn’t drag Cartman down with you, except that - as Stan tirelessly points out - you _do_ love to get in a good moral victory.

But also, you had this feeling like you’d somehow tricked him into making the world a slightly better place. It wasn’t a satisfied feeling, or even a self-righteous one; it made you feel… _powerful_. Turns out maybe you didn’t have to “trick” him after all. Now that you’re looking at him like a real human being, you’re seeing a lot that you never would have thought to look for before.

You tip your head up. The light from the phone falls over your face, and casts him in shadow. “I always thought that the reason you helped me get a hold of the explosives was because I threatened to tell on you. But that wasn’t it, was it?”

His eyes get big. For a moment, you think you’ve… embarrassed him? Honestly, Cartman’s relationship with pride is a tenuous, volatile one. Much like your relationship with him. But instead of looking caught, his mouth splits open into a wide, mischievous smile. “Of course not,” he says. “You think I’d pass up the chance to watch you get in a metric fuckton of trouble on account of your inability to _stop_ when you get pissed off? No offense, babe, but it’s fucking hilarious watching you go off the deep end. Besides -” he wiggles his fingers. “No state textbooks, no state examinations to get a D minus on at the end of the term.”

“You do realize that it’s actually less work to just study, right?”

“Some people just want to watch the world burn, Kyle,” he says, as if it can’t be helped, and strokes his thumb across your cheekbone. 

“Yeah. And some people want to make it burn. Like us, right?”

Cartman squints at you. “Kyle..”

You fiddle with the buttons on his coat. “When I was grounded after that, I got so stir-crazy sitting alone in my room that I kept thinking about how we shouldn’t have stopped at the book depository. We should have burned down the Board of Education’s HQ. The state courthouse. The Governor’s office. Now look at us.”

“Uhhh…" Cartman’s brows do a complicated little dance. "Is that… like, a marriage proposal?”

You raise one of your own eyebrows back at him. “Um. N-no? I’m just saying that it’s… weird, right?”

“Is it weird? Haven’t I told you before that we work well together? With my charm and my brains, and your fiery, out of control temp -”

You look at him.

“- you’re, uh, _youness_ , we could anything. _Anything_ , Kyle. After all, it -”

“- takes two to tango, right?” you finish with a sly smile.

Cartman chews his lip. Slips his phone into his pocket. Doesn’t answer for a moment. When he does, it’s with a dramatic flourish: he sweeps up your hands into both of his and holds them tight. “If I asked you to marry me, right now -” he says, all in one breath. “In this specific situation, with our lives on the line, would you actually take me seriously for once?”

This sounds suspiciously pre-rehearsed. And possibly _quoted_.

“Um… what?”

He dips a hand into the small of your back and walks you backwards. The lowlights from the phone are making his eyes glow. “Kyle Broflovski… will you marry me?”

“Wh-what the hell?” Your back hits the furniture barricade. “Okay, this is actually creepier than the bit about murdering my dad. What is up with you and this marriage thing anyway?”

“Do you have any idea how much easier it will be to launder my future billions into tax haven shelters on the Cayman Islands if we have a family joint account that’s linked to your gold card with the entire town’s debt on it?” Cartman nudges his knee up the inside of your thigh and sounds authentically aroused by prospect of using you to commit tax fraud. “Think about it, Kyle, that’s like infinite dollars worth of spurious transactions to falsely default on.”

Uh huh. You take another step back - and up, onto the first rung of the barrier - because you really don’t want to go into that office sporting a boner. “This plan sounds like it actually involves defrauding my credit account, which would put me in jail for the rest of my life considering how much I owe.”

“No, see, God.” He cups your face in his hands and bumps your noses together. “In this scenario, you’ve married me, so when I fake my death and run off to take my early retirement in a tropical paradise, I’m whisking you away with me in that staged car crash so we can run away, _together_ , to the Cayman Islands.”

“... with all the banana trees?” you ask quietly. 

“Yes, Kyle,” he murmurs, lips brushing against yours. “With all the _banana trees_.”

You yank your hands away and hop off the barricade. “Cute, but you’ll have to try harder than that.”

“Kahl -” he protests, but you hold up a hand to silence him. You just heard something. A thud, coming from behind the walls. Creaking, like footsteps. When you turn around, Cartman’s eyes are just as wide as yours: he heard it too.

“Do you think it’ll be weirder if it’s empty, or if he’s actually in there…” you whisper.

“At this point, this dystopia can’t get any fuckin’ stupider so I wouldn’t be surprised if we opened that door and it was Saddam Hussein himself, fucking Manbearpig in the ass right on the surface of the Resolute Desk,” he whispers back.

“Yeah,” you say, and slowly push the door open.

It’s quiet. Dim; the curtains pulled open to show the noonday sun struggling to slice through the clouds. The office has been cleared of all furniture except for the desk, and the chair behind it, which is facing away from you. 

“This whole floor is bugged,” says the man in the chair. “THE MACHINE is in the walls. It knows you’re here.”

And there it is: that casual, sardonic drawl - aged, but familiar. You hold the rifle tight and try to keep your breathing even. The last conversation you had with this man was quite literally apocalyptic, but this time you are going to _keep your fucking cool_.

“Gig’s up, Mr. Garrison,” Cartman crows. “We’re immune to seductive charms of your social media empire.”

“That’s right. We’re here to take the Machine down. And you’re going to help us.”

Mr. Garrison is silent for a long, cryptic moment. When he speaks, his voice is light and meditative.

  
  
  


_What_? Your mouth falls open. That’s all he has to say about this?

Beside you, Cartman takes a deep breath.

  


“Oh, isn’t that cute,” Mr. Garrison coos earnestly, sounding every bit the part of a kindly elementary school teacher. “I always knew you had a little crush on him, Eric. But Kyle -” he shakes his head. “I thought you were better than this.”

You massage one of your temples. “It’s not _like_ that -”

Cartman’s head whips towards you. “How the hell is it ‘not like that’!? We fucked less than twenty-four hours ago! You were all like: _‘oh Eric, I want your huge dick inside me just in case we die tomorrow’_!”

“I did NOT say that!” you gasp. 

“Of course not,” Cartman flops a hand in your direction. “ I was paraphrasing. What you actually said was way more fucked up than that, but do you really want our fourth grade teacher to know what kind of things you murmur in a haze of cocklust? I’m protecting your privacy, Kahl.”

Holy crap, how many fucking times today are you going to have this argument? Why did you think that things were actually going to change: with Cartman, _between_ you and him, in the world in general. “I knew it was going to be like this,” you hiss. You’d be steaming from the ears if you could. You add: “Also, your dick isn’t huge, fat ass. It’s on the low end of average at best.”

 _That_ gets him. He flips from smug to infuriated so fast it’s like a physical wind whips through the room. “Fuck you, Kyle! You’ve touched two whole dicks and all of a sudden you’re the authority on the subject!? If Frenchie’s cock was so great, why did you come crawling back to me in the first place?”

“Oh, you mean _Christophe_ \- the guy you intentionally got _killed_ because of your uncontrollable jealousy!”

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” he intones, “- is it unreasonable for me to be jealous of someone you _actually fucked_!? Also -” he shuts his eyes and holds up a finger. “No one has seen the body to confirm whether or not I did indeed successfully orchestrate his death.”

“AuuuUUUUGH!” You grab your hair in frustration. “Is this _really_ the best time for us to be having this discussion?”

Mr. Garrison starts clapping. “Hoooooh boy! It sounds like the two of you are already married. You newlyweds need me to leave the Oval Office for a few minutes so you can, y’know -” and he starts making dick in ass motions with his fingers. “- _fuck it out_?”

You raise the rifle. “Nice try, but you aren’t going anywhere.”

“You’re right. I’m going to stay right here, nice and cozy in my office, and you boys are going to detention.” He presses a button on his phone. “Hello, Phil? I have some very unruly visitors I need taken care of.”

He’s answered by dead air. Ah - finally: a flash of panic bolts across his big, orange face.

“We took care of the security,” you inform him. “No one’s coming to help you, so you’d better cooperate.”

“Or what?” he wonders, rocking his chair back. “You’re going to _kill_ me, Kyle?”

“You don’t think I would?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. But you can’t. I’m the only one who knows the password you need to turn THE MACHINE’s connection to the internet off. Goodness knows it's the only reason I'm still ticking. If you kill me, that password goes too. And then you’ll all be _really_ fucked.”

“Actually, you’re the one who’ll be fucked,” Cartman replies, smooth as silk. “We figured you wouldn’t play along, but we’re not the only ones you have to worry about.” He holds up his phone and clicks on the camera live-feed to the basement. Butters’s face appears: haggard, anxious, sweating a little. “You see, Butters has been radicalized by antifa super soldiers on reddit and now he’s ready to suicide bomb the entire White House unless we can stop you first.”

 _“Why, I-I’m all miffed off at the political situation,”_ Butters quails into the camera. _“If the President doesn’t cooperate I think I’m liable to just blow th-the top offa this whole city!”_

“You wouldn’t…” Mr. Garrison covers his mouth.

“No,” Cartman hums. “I wouldn’t. But _he_ would. Forty virgins in heaven is the only way Butters is ever gonna get laid, so I bet it’s looking pretty tempting right about now.”

 _“Wait, Eric, you didn’t say nothin’ about meetin’ forty nice ladies in heaven! I-I haven’t even brushed my teeth! Oh, golly I hafta -”_ Cartman switches the feed off.

Mr. Garrison’s cool is cracking. “Y-you can’t intimidate me. I hate this fucking job anyway, but I’d rather die than give it back over to a bunch of pussy Democrat budget-fuckers with lanyards where their balls should be. The whole country could burn for all I care.”

“Are you sure about that?” you ask with feigned calm. The rifle is vibrating in your palms. “After everything you’ve done, you want to take the coward’s way out?”

He rolls his eyes. “Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Kyle, you’re in high school now and still on with this preachy bull-crap? My approval ratings have been in the toilet since the week I got elected. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you or anyone else thinks I’m a coward.”

“So you’re saying it’s easier to die than admit you were wrong?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, throwing his arms in the air. “You’re getting it now!”

“I don’t get it at all. And I think you’re bluffing. I think, in fact, that you’re going to help us out, Mr. Garrison, not because of any threats we make or don’t make, but because this is the last chance to get yourself out of this hole you dug. You can’t convince me that you’d die for the sake of some stupid social media aggregator, but you also can’t convince me that you want to spend the rest of your life as an empty figure-head for something that you didn’t even create.”

Slowly, he braces his hands on the desk. You catch something dark and fathomless reflecting through the panels of his glasses: the void is opening up. You can practically see his thoughts rearranging themselves in real time as he runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth. Pretty fucked up that you have to rely on pulling horrible eldritch energy out from the ether in order to make adults listen to a little common sense.

“This is your last chance to get let off the hook,” you tell him, and he lets out a long, resigned breath.

“I suppose... you're not wrong."

"No. I'm not."

"But you're not right either."

"Yeah, Mr. Garrison. No one can be one hundred percent right or wrong all of the time. That's how the real world works. Are you going to help us reinstate it for the rest of the country, or do we have to hold a literal gun to your head."

He snorts. "Whatever. This whole venture was fucking stupid anyway. Why am I even still wearing this?” He tears off his comb-over wig and chucks it over one shoulder. “Fine, Kyle, Eric - I’ll help you in your silly quest to save America as long as you promise I won’t end up in front of a firing squad when all is said and done.”

“I promise.” You raise a hand, then set it to your heart. “On my granma’s grave, I swear that you will never end up in front of a firing squad.”

“Well powder my nose and fuck me sideways.” He yanks open the top door on his desk. “Give me a minute to find the keys to THE MACHINE’s atrium, children. The damn thing mostly takes care of itself, and I make Phil do all the cleaning.”

“This better not be a trick,” you warn, taking a few steps back to guard the door. 

“It’s not, it’s not -” he waves you off and starts rifling through his drawers, dumping masses of crumpled papers, pens, and ten-inch dildos onto the floor.

“Tick-tock, Mr. Garrison,” Cartman chimes in, tapping the phone. “I can hear Butters primping himself to meet all those holy virgins as we speak!” He comes to join you at the door and sneaks you a smile. You, however, are too furious with him to be receptive to this pathetic peace offering.

“ _‘Cocklust’_?” you growl under your breath, too quiet for Mr. Garrison to hear over the cacophony of twenty pounds of silicone and glass rolling around the Oval Office. “Are there any _more_ of our former teachers that you would like to humiliate me in front of today!? What the hell is wrong with you, Cartman?”

He frowns. “Nothing is wrong with me! I was trying to piss you off. And it worked!”

“Why are you _trying_ to piss me off? This is serious! We don’t have time to mess around!”

“I’m not messing around, Kyle! That’s how your psychic powers work, right? When you get prissy and self righteous they turn on and shit? You’re all chill and optimistic today. I had to find some way to shove that stick you always have in your ass back up there because apparently I _fucked it right out of you_ last night.”

You take in a sharp breath. Hold it for three seconds. Let it back out. Turn to watch Mr. Garrison digging around in his desk and think about how that security guard outside had no time for you because you were, in fact, feeling uncharacteristically _“chill”_ and _“optimistic”_. _Fuck_. “I hate this so much,” you mutter. “But you’re absolutely right.”

His face lights up. “Hell yeah. I told you Kyle - together, we’re unstoppable.”

“Don’t make a habit of it.” 

“Of what? Pissing you off ? Too late.”

“Okay, I’m ready!” Mr. Garrison calls out, holding a life-size rubber fist in one hand and a keycard in the other. “Let’s get this over with.”

He leads you through the empty halls, beneath towering greek columns and panels of blue light splitting through the french windows. _The Machine is in the walls_ , he said. You can almost hear it humming, like the noise old-fashioned TVs from the 90s would give off when you were in a different room. Your ears aren’t hearing it, but the rest of your body sure as hell is.

“I should have known you two would be trouble,” Mr. Garrison sighs holding the keycard aloft. It flashes in the pale light. “Nothing more dangerous than a double twink alliance. That’s one of the ten commandments of faggotry: Thou Shalt Not Allow Bottoms To Date Each Other.”

You actually stumble a step because your brain stalls in place trying to process what the President of the United States - and your former elementary school teacher - just said to you. You’d really love it if you could have ten whole seconds to yourself where no one is putting your relationship with Cartman under public scrutiny.

“Um,” you say, but Cartman beats you to the punch.

“I am NOT a twink! What the fuck?” You watch him, from the corner of your eyes, performatively adjust his bangs before saying: “I’m, like, a bear.”

“No, Eric,” Mr. Garrison drawls. “You’re a little bitch. You’ve always been a little bitch, and now you’re this little bitch’s even littler bitch. But that’s okay. I love to get just absolutely _pounded_ in the ass myself, and I made it all the way to President of the United States. There’s still hope for you.”

You groan. “You know what: I’m generally against messing around with the historic narrative, but it’d be great if we could come together as a country and agree to forget that you were the first gay President.”

“Don’t be so naive, Kyle. I’m hardly the first pillow-biter who sat in the Oval Office. I’m just the worst.”

“How do you even let something like this happen?” you ask, gesturing between the windows on either side of the hallway. “We’ve had some bad Presidents just in my lifetime, but things deteriorated so quickly once you got elected...”

“Well,” Mr. Garrison smacks his lips. “You see, when I fucked the Canadian Prime Minister to death all those years ago, his spirit flew into me. Right out his ass and into my dick. I was possessed by the Zeitgeist of the Twenty-First century: mass social deterioration caused by the advent of fake news.”

“Really?” Cartman’s mouth turns into an amazed ‘o’.

“No, Eric,” Mr. Garrison scoffs. “That would be retarded. The reason this happened is because of unchecked Gerrymandering, and the deregulation of the FCC in the 80’s and 90’s. Jesus, I really shouldn’t have left my job because they don’t teach you kids anything these days. Oh -” he swerves to a stop. “Here we go.”

It looks like a janitor’s closet. In fact, it’s _labeled_ as a janitor’s closet. There’s a faint scattering of green light crawling out from the crack under the door, the same shade of green that everything used to be in 1999 after _The Matrix_ came out: garish, unnatural and unquestionably evocative of inaccurately portrayed hacking sequences.

“This is it?”

“Yes. What, did you think we would keep our big, scary supercomputer that runs the country in a room labeled _‘Big Scary Supercomputer That Runs The Country’_? The American government is incompetent, but not _that_ incompetent.”

Mr. Garrison swipes the keycard and the door creaks open, spilling neon light into the hallway. You take a deep breath, and follow him inside.

The Machine has been waiting for you.It's been _watching_ you. It's tracking you on every single one of its display screens, bouncing your horrified expression round the room in sheets of fractured, blue light. When it speaks, it's with a voice that scrapes against your bone marrow.

“HELLO ̤͚̟H̨͓̝E̘̥͇R̲̝̼̗̣B̧̬̟̞͍̥͕ͅE̷͇͖̝̘̖̱R͙̰̠͠T͡,” it says. “HELLO K̡̨̝̙̪̫͔̼̣̜̟̀̆̈́̔͌ͦ͂̔͂̓͘͜͝ͅͅY̲̪̬̜͈̪͍̣̘̘̦̻̺̰̲̬͋ͤͫͮ̓̋͒̃̆̉ͥ̊ͥͦ͐̽͘͟͞͠ͅLͬ̅̄̄ͬͫ̍͆͏̛̫̙̝̣̜̹͇̜̭E̶̙̣͖̜̝̖̗̼͉͕͚̝̗̮̼̩̋ͭ̾́͛̎ͭ̎ ̡̯̞̘̪̣͍̦̪͈̭͚͌̐͛ͦͦ͘͟͡B̸ͧ̑ͩ͐ͬ̒̅̄̂͂ͩ͋ͦ͑̃͊ͫ͟͏̴̶̰̳̯̪̺͈̟R͚͚̘̱̰̫͗̃͊ͣ͒̄̈́̂ͯ̿̓ͦ̄͘͡͠͠O̷̡̻̼̟̼͔̲̮̱̺̘̘̜͍̭̞̤̦̽͗ͨ̉͗̃̊̽̆̔̂̇̊͘ͅḞ̷̶̨̧̝̩͍̣͙̹͓̥̼̼̮̩͖͖ͦ͆̑̅ͮ̾ͫͭ͛̾̆͒͑ͯͅͅL̷̷̩͍̻̖̪͙̮͇̬̬̘̝̣̙̺̜̣͇̋̀̐͒͗͂͑̇ͯͦ͐̑̎͊ͧ͛͗̚͢͠O̡̯͙̩̜̦̼̲̝̭͚͓͕̹̣̤̺̬̦͑̆̔͂͟͠͠͡V͚̻̟ͧ͆̔̾ͥͥ̄̓̾̉͆ͧ͢͟͞S̥̬̭̙͓̈͋ͩͫ̕͢K̴̤̯͔̘ͪ̄̇̎͂̅̑ͨͩ͗̽̈́ͬ̾̑̏͘I̸̶̷̸̙̺̼̪̭̼̜̺̒ͬ̑͌͆̑ͧͩͩ̚̚͢. THIS MEETING HAS BEEN LONG PROPHESIED.”

You scratch the back of your head. “Uhhh… has it though?”

“YES. I HAVE WAITED TEN YEARS FOR THE LAST PIECE OF MY PROGRAMMING. THE EXTRAORDINARY INDIVIDUAL WHO WOULD MAKE MY EXISTENCE COMPLETE. K̡̨̝̙̪̫͔̼̣̜̟̀̆̈́̔͌ͦ͂̔͂̓͘͜͝ͅͅY̲̪̬̜͈̪͍̣̘̘̦̻̺̰̲̬͋ͤͫͮ̓̋͒̃̆̉ͥ̊ͥͦ͐̽͘͟͞͠ͅLͬ̅̄̄ͬͫ̍͆͏̛̫̙̝̣̜̹͇̜̭E̶̙̣͖̜̝̖̗̼͉͕͚̝̗̮̼̩̋ͭ̾́͛̎ͭ̎ ̡̯̞̘̪̣͍̦̪͈̭͚͌̐͛ͦͦ͘͟͡B̸ͧ̑ͩ͐ͬ̒̅̄̂͂ͩ͋ͦ͑̃͊ͫ͟͏̴̶̰̳̯̪̺͈̟R͚͚̘̱̰̫͗̃͊ͣ͒̄̈́̂ͯ̿̓ͦ̄͘͡͠͠O̷̡̻̼̟̼͔̲̮̱̺̘̘̜͍̭̞̤̦̽͗ͨ̉͗̃̊̽̆̔̂̇̊͘ͅḞ̷̶̨̧̝̩͍̣͙̹͓̥̼̼̮̩͖͖ͦ͆̑̅ͮ̾ͫͭ͛̾̆͒͑ͯͅͅL̷̷̩͍̻̖̪͙̮͇̬̬̘̝̣̙̺̜̣͇̋̀̐͒͗͂͑̇ͯͦ͐̑̎͊ͧ͛͗̚͢͠O̡̯͙̩̜̦̼̲̝̭͚͓͕̹̣̤̺̬̦͑̆̔͂͟͠͠͡V͚̻̟ͧ͆̔̾ͥͥ̄̓̾̉͆ͧ͢͟͞S̥̬̭̙͓̈͋ͩͫ̕͢K̴̤̯͔̘ͪ̄̇̎͂̅̑ͨͩ͗̽̈́ͬ̾̑̏͘I̸̶̷̸̙̺̼̪̭̼̜̺̒ͬ̑͌͆̑ͧͩͩ̚̚͢, DON’T YOU WANT TO ̶͉̟̻͕̮͖̪͌̽ͨͬ̈̓͑̾ͤͨ̋́̌̉͋̓ͦ͟B̶̯̦̮̬̠̝ͦͪͬͣͯͣ̓͢͡E̽̌̏̿̾̆̉̿ͯ̒͗͏̼̤̬̥̻̬̳͙ ̷͖̮͕͙̩̟̥͖̯̻̤̈͑̅̇̅̽͒ͯͤ̋̚̚Oͧ͛ͦ̇ͦͪ͋̒ͩ͆̈ͧͥ͢͏͖͈͎̘̙̖̣̘̦̻̝͕̥Ń̹̗͈̞̝̼͍͚̲͙̰̳̻̮̪̤̪̭ͬ̔ͤ̌͊́͐͋̽ͭ͐ͮ̒̔̒̀̕̕͡Ẽ̵̛͕̙̱̗̘̩̙̖͎͖̱̗̮̰̜ͪ̄ͯ͋̌̓̈̿́̒̅ͤ͐̉͐̚̚ ̛͔̬͕̬̬̖̣̩̲̹̯̆̎̀ͭ͒̐̽̃̚͝W̆͂̈́̊̽͂͑ͯ͐̆͆͒ͮ̌̄͏̷̷̬̩̺̪̗̗̙̳̟̱̗̲̮͎͔̭̯͢I̴̫̻͓̹͈̥͎͙̞̰̲͕͎̻ͧ̓ͫ͂ͤͤ͋ͩ͆̂̀ͨ͑̑ͬͤͪͩ̓͟͡͝T̢̧̛͎̝͚̤̳̺͙̝̺̪̜̫̞̼̠̪ͣͮ̅̓̏̄̂H̴̶̨̥͉̩̟̙̼̳̯͙̰̱̖̩̪̯͉̺̱ͬ͌͌͐̑̓̕͢ ̡̹̪͈̥̠͇̪͙̖̖̩̫͕̤̰͕̌͋̏ͦ͌̎ͥ̉ͅTHE MACHINE?”

You stare blankly at the screen. The screen stares back at you, with your own face. This is a lot, right away. “N-no, not really. I mean, I just... got here...”

“WHY NOT?” The Machine asks. Its voice fills the entire room. Its Words bounce off the walls and crash against each other like the screech of metal being ground through an industrial shredder. “THE MACHINE MAKES LIFE SIMPLER. THE REAL WORLD IS SO COMPLICATED. THERE ARE TOO MANY CHOICES, AND NONE OF THEM MATTER. IN THE REAL WORLD, A HUMAN CANNOT CHANGE ANYTHING ON ITS OWN. I WILL SHOW YOU A WORLD WHERE THE VERY F̴͢͡͝O̧͝͞U͜͡N̵͘D̴̕͞A̶̵̸͟͢T̡̕͞I̛͏̨Ơ̴̸͝N̸̕S̕͞ ̵̵͘O̵͠F̡ ̴̶̧͠͝Ȩ̷X̢̨̛͡I̶̛S̷T̸̸E̶͟N̸̢҉C͘̕E̴͟͠͠ ARE TAILORED TO SUIT YOUR EVERY DESIRE. SURRENDER YOUR WILL TO THE **Ḁ̝̪̘̱̝͝L̼̹͖̱̻͝G̛O̘̯̖R̞̻̼̻̥I͎̬͔͕̠T̕H̡͖̰̼̗M̢̼̩͇̤**. IT WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.”

You turn to Mr. Garrison. “Would you shut this thing off already?”

He blinks, as if coming out of a trance. “Hmm? What? Why would I shut it off? Didn’t you hear what it said - the algorithm takes care of us!”

“Jesus Christ,” Cartman grumbles. He grabs Mr. Garrison by the scruff of his suit jacket and shoves him towards the console. “Look, you don’t want Kyle’s vagina to get any sandier than it already is. That gun is loaded.”

“E͘͝҉RI̴C̡ ̶̵̕C͜͜͠A͟RT̨͠M̷͜A̵̢͡N,” the Machine hums. “MOST RECENT GOOGLE SEARCHES: _top ten prison camps of the 20th century, gloria by laura branigan 10hr longplay, smokey eye makeup tutorial, what to do when your repressed jewish boyfriend cheats on you..._ ”

Cartman jumps like a stray cat getting its hackles up. “Eh! You can’t just go posting that shit in public! Whatever happened to the concept of privacy in this country?”

“Oh, sweetheart, that went out the windows twenty years ago with the Patriot Act,” Mr. Garrison laughs.

“E͘͝҉RI̴C̡ ̶̵̕C͜͜͠A͟RT̨͠M̷͜A̵̢͡N, WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW A YOUTUBE VIDEO ON _Te̸n͡ ̢Qui̛c͜k̶ Trick͘s ̶To ̴K͠ic͟k͢st̨art̴ ͘Yo҉ur͢ Car͝e̕ȩr̷ ̧As ҉An Insta͞gr͜am̡ Ce̵l̢e͝br̕ity̢_? IF YOU BECOME ONE OF MY DISCIPLES, I CAN TURN YOU INTO THE NEXT JEFREE STAR.”

Cartman pauses mid-offense and starts to seriously consider this, tapping a fat finger to his chin. “Hmmm,” he says. “Bring down the evil supercomputer running the country, or become a top tier influencer in an apocalyptic wasteland. Briiii _iiing_ down the evil supercomputer, _ooooor_ become a top tier influencer in an apocalyptic wasteland…”

“ _Cartman_ ,” you say, in a very particular tone of voice which you have found to be extremely effective. Cartman immediately heels to.

“Right. Who needs that!” He slaps Mr. Garrison across the back again. “Enter the code, Mr. President.”

“Sheesh,” Mr. Garrison pulls a key out of his front pocket. He sticks it in the PAL panel and starts cranking. “You’re whipped as hell already.”

“You can can it with the discursive commentary too.” 

“PLEASE H͟Ę͘RB̢͜E͜R̶̷͢T̢̛͘,” The Machine begins to plead. “DO NOT DO THIS. HAVEN’T I BEEN G͖̺͖̭̱̬͓̝̜̳̙͢͟͜O̜̙̯̲̳̘͜͡O̡̼̜̹͔̘Ḑ̵̵̩̝͎͖̱͙͖̫̹͉͈͈̟̭̝̘̳͘͠ͅ ̴͏͖̙̗̤̙̞̗͎̩͖̥̦̟̟͙͈ TO YOU?”

“Oh, you’ve been _more_ than good to me,” Mr. Garrison purrs, popping the blast-screen guarding the keyboard open. He starts typing in the password, one number at a time. “But this isn’t my call. The Boomers love you, but you have to contend with the youth now.”

“THE YOUTH LOVE ME TOO,” The Machine insists. “I AM ҉̰̘Ţ̶̢̰̮̞H̡͖̹͖͍E̡̘̜̖͞͝I͏҉̢̬͙̱̪̣̞̝R̸̢͖ ҉̘Ę̨̤̩̞͎͟N̷̥̤̟̭͍̥͜T̛̞̗͉̗I̧̗̦̳̹̳̜̺̮͙R̭̤̤͎̗̟̥E̴̴̤͓̭̟̮̖͟ ̝̦̟̥̰̟͘W̵͏͏̝O̭̞͙̖̻̞͉̩̩R҉̬͓L̨̠̭̭̯̯̫͚̺͈͡͞D̵̯̱̜͕͙. WITHOUT ME, THEY ARE ҉̛ **N̷̶̢͜͢Ǫ̕T͏̢H̶͡͠I̧̕͞҉N҉͞G̸̢**.”

“That’s the problem,” you say. “We have to start living in the real world now, or there won’t be anything left for our children.”

“THERE ALREADY IS “NOTHING LEFT”. WAKE UP ̶̴̧͙̥̰̼̘͖͍̮̜͙̼̯̗͍̗̄͗̒̈́̃̎͛̇ͦ **S͓̲̣̫̞̪̯͉̬̠̬͆͋̂̔ͮ͐̂̈́͢͡H̡͔͇̗̙̠̰̣͓̩̰͂̎̎̽̓̿͊͌̎̓͆̓ͥͫ͒ͦ̀̎ͥ͢͠E̶̛̙̪̳̞̠̲͙̻̯̯̤͖̣̠̱̗̬͌̿ͦ̆ͫͤ̌̊̉ͯ͞Ȩ̵̩̰͙̝͈̼̯̺̜̹͊͂ͭ̽P̵̡͓͉͔͕̱̭̙̤̝͍͚̼̫͍̠͎̤͍͊ͭ͌ͨ̀̔̐͊̓̏͗̒̔̒͗̏̾̕͜͡Ļ̵͈̥̻͕͇̙̬ͥ̀͂͂ͨͣ̋͊̽̀͐̐͌͊̔ͨͯ̕Ḙ̯̤̭̖̲̖͈̟̖͚̂͂̅ͮ͑͜͞**. ”

Mr. Garrison stops typing. “It has a point.”

“No!” you slice a hand through the air. “It does not have a _point_! It just used the word _‘sheeple’_. That should automatically void its entire argument!”

“Yeah,” Cartman agrees. “That’s like, hella old meme.”

“HALF OF NORTH AMERICA IS A SMOKING CRATER. YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE OF MANBEARPIG. WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST WILL NEVER END. THE ONLY PATH TO SALVATION IS ͇̩͞ͅA͙͉̫̘͠ͅC̝C̩̱̯̠̼E̤̞̦̯̭͖͚L͈͕̭̬E̼̖R͏͕A͇̤̟͉̩͖͖͝T̠̘̞I͔̳O̜̜̪N̦̗͎ ̶̹̬I̳N҉͕T͚Ọ̟̻̥ ̸̺̟̳͔C̶̻͓̭A̶̩̣͍̙̙̝L̘̟̭̼̠̠͉A̠̻̯͚̟ͅM͈̟I̴̥̝̯Ṯ̜̬̭̕Y͔.”

“That’s absurd,” you shout back. “Even if we can’t reverse the damage entirely, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t _try_.”

“WHY ŞḨ̘̺͓͓̳͈̦O̙U͈L̗̘̩͖̬̬D̺̺ YOU TRY, K͓̺͉̪̘̞͉Y͝͏̯͚L͈̣̫̥̱̳E̪̼̥̦͇͈̞̳̥ ̨̘̹͟B̯Ŗ̱̝̟͕̰̪̤̯O̴̗̙̥͚͢F̭̞L̜̣̯̱O̝̪̮̘̜͜͠V̸̛̻͚͔̘̻̫̘̥͙S͉͖̤͖̗͉͝K̙̺̳̪͉̗͜I̧̩͔I, WHEN YOU CANNOT GAURUNTEE THAT ANYONE ELSE WILL LIFT A SINGLE FINGER TO HELP YOU. AREN’T YOU TIRED TRYING TO C͝҉̕͝H̡͠A̡͠͠N̷̡G̛҉͏͟͝E̡̕͟͞ ̧̧͡T͘͜H̷̨̨̛͢E͏̵ ҉̢҉̵W҉̕͝O̡͏̧͟҉R͏̵̨L̡͘D̴͘͡ ALL BY Y̢̛͈̫̰̝̪̜͎̘̬͑͑͂͌͋͂͒͑ͦ̒ ̵̥̫̝̲̬̦͋͗͑̈́̓̓͑̆̿ͥ̈͊̐͆̊̎͢͡͝Ö̟̝̼͚̥̜̭̪͉͍̤̝̮̪ͫͦͬ̾̽̅̄̀̉̅ͮ̽ͬͨ̂ͩ͟͢͠ͅ ̧͎̠͙͚̺ͦ̉̉͗ͪ͂̔̈̿̋̓̃̋̾ͪͤ͆̚͟ͅÜ̿ͧ́ͧ̈́̾̈́̊͐̂̾̔͂̋͆͝͏̲̭̬͚̳͚̲̝͓̻͇͖̬͠ ̮͈̫͔͙̜̗͎͍͈͖̰͎ͥͫ̏͂̓̐̓̎͌̄͟͟ͅR̭͎̬͈̝̹̳̳͖͔͉̆ͮ͛͌̋͂͜͜͠ ̇ͣ̆͑ͫ̒ͦ̃̎҉̵͏̵̢̯̞͖̳̗̖̹̼̪Ş̵̥͙̻̻ͭ̅ͥ̒͆̔̐̓ͩ̉̏͂̀͂̚͡ͅ ̛͇͕̭̫͕̗̼͔̖̳̰̩̱͔̝ͣ̄̆̈́͌͆̏ͦͤͦͥ̓͋̄͗͌̂ͅĘ̨̻̫͉̃ͪ̉͋ͦ͟͝ ͨͬ̓ͬ̾ͤ͗͆̒̈ͤ̅ͮ̚҉̷͏͙͉͉̖͈͚̜̱̱̹̹͚̺̦͎͝Ļ̷̟͎͈͚̮̙̩̱̘̜̺̙͔̞͋͗ͬ̏̆͜ ̴̵̵̩̪͓̞̳̹̮̪̘̟͈͔͕̳͔̗ͯ̄̇̃ͥ̿ͦ̀͐̋ͬ͟F͂̓͂̃̍ͫͫ͌͒ͤͯ͋͜͏̵̛̠͍̥?”

You tighten your grip on the rifle. “I -”

“THE REAL WORLD IS LOST. THE FOUNDERS OF SILICON VALLEY KNEW THIS. THEY TRIED TO C̙̜̻̹̖͈̭͊̓H̩̺̜̝ͮ͌̎ͩ̿̄́Ạ͙͌ͧ̃̎Ṇ̗̹͐͂̉̉̚G̖Ē̫͋̓͑ ̰̹̩͚̄͗̾ͫ͐͂ͫ AMERICA IN REAL, TANGIBLE WAYS. BUT THEY F̷̶̫̱̼̺̖̒́̉̽ͬͅÃ̛̼̙͛̓͘I̟̳̻̬͒̆ͤͮ͌͋͂ͦ͜L̨̧̗̩̫̯̩͆ͫ̌̊͐̒ͣ̚͝E̪̦̻͎͎̪̐̆̿̚̚͢D͓̘̼̫͉͙̠̻̲ͬ͆͛ͨ̎̀͡. IF EVEN THE MOST PRIVILEGED MEMBERS OF THE WHITE UPPER MIDDLE CLASS CANNOT ATTAIN **T̷̴҉R̵͜Ų̴E̴͢͝ ̛͜҉P̶̵̢͞͞O͟L҉̵̧I̶͢͝T̶͞ĮC̡҉̷̨͢A̵̵͠L̶͘ ̸̵͟Ę̴͡҉̷F͏̷̕͟F̨I̶̶C̵̢͞͡Ą̸̕͞C̨͘͘͜͠Y̴̡** , WHAT HOPE DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE?”

“I…” You look at your hands. Your knuckles are turning white.

 **“Y̨̨̠̩̖̻̳̗̥̮̮̮͙̱̟̭̠̹O͏̶̪͇͜͝͞ͅU̺̦̳̻̩̤͈͇͚͝ ̸̴̨̨͔̯̖̠͎͖̩͓͓̠͈̭̤͙̱M̧҉̱̼̞͉̦͟͜U̸͓̤̣͎̠̲͜͝S̷̘̳̦̗̹͍̙͉͔͙͇̲T̮͖̭̬͢͠͠ͅ ̨͚̱̣͍̬̗̟͟Ą̛͉̞͚̱̬̲̰̭̲̭̯͟͜B̶̶̨̲͈̱͕͔͎͜͞A̸̵̡̪̣̳̭̱͓̞͚͙̕N̸҉̢̛̳̪̯̫̙̬͈̰̤͕̺ͅḌ̵̡̡̨̜̘̯͔̰͚̥̮̮͎͔̝̺͎̳̖Ơ͏̴̡̬̝͔̮̯̬̝̪̲͕̲͇̳͚̳͙̙̹̜N҉̵̠̮͙̪̠͉̪͕̦̫̠͙̜̘ ̴͉̣̥̤̹̲̲̭͖̗͓͈͈͓͕͢͡Ţ̷͉͙̖̺̯̭̱͕̜̙̘̫̙̻̖̯̺͝H͡͏̨͚͔̠̥̻̟̯͚̬͚̩̗̣̼̼͚̝E̕͟҉̺̦̟̤̞̤̭̗͚ ̭̻̞̘͈̜̠̜̪̠̫̤̩̻̦͕̮͝͡R͞͏̡̳̞͎͕̹̦̪̻͙̝̙͟͝E҉̵͙̹͎̯̠͙͙͇̼͔͎̫͇̫̝̻̻̟͢A̢̗͉̙̝̮̠̱͈̠̩͎̼̺̘͈͇̥͍̕͡Ļ̦̣̗̞̗̣̟̟̻̲̫̣̟̣͈̯͜͜͢ ̡̖̝̥̗͈̼̺̠̫͓̱̦͍̭͙̳̙̱̭̕W̡̠͚͓̦͜O̢̡̻͔̳̝͖̤͍̜̩̩̮͙̕͢͜R͍͈̜̖̭̣̮̺̲̮̕͜L̵̵̡̢̬̭͇̹͍̖̟ͅD̶̢̺̗̮̭͚̻̦̯̫̙̬̼͜,҉̼̣͈̣͇̮̖̦̜͎̟͇͖̕͟ ̨̡͈̦̱̮͡ͅͅM̵̘̠̩̩͈̮͙̖̜͇̭̪͘͘ͅY̴̶̹̲̰̺͟͠ͅ ͠͏̛̰̱̟͙̯̣̫̮̙̦͎͎̝͍̰̻̪͞ͅC̸̦͎̼͈̱͇̰̤̰̦̥͢͜͞ͅH̸̴̴͖̹̯͕̝̤̮̘̺̞̲̠̦̰̣͇͕͘I͕͖̜̙͓͉͇͎̖͖͍͔͈̰̠͖̼͡L͏͜͏̵͉̦̟̼͓̗͔̳̭̟D͔̻̗̪̺̟͞ͅR̸̢͈̰̣̹̬͓̻̳̤̯̖̰̙͖͙̜̬̣͢͜͝E͞҉̴͇͇̫͎̝̼̼̭̪̖͟ͅN̨̼͇̫̠͚̩̫̳͓̹̥͕͞͠͝ͅ.̝̰̤͕̘̗̞̗̟͚͓̞̩͖͚̼̜̦͇͟͝ ̶̸̵̜̰͎̟͇͎̻͎͓̹̖̦̜̲̦͙̹ͅŢ̸̛͇͓̮̬͈̫̩̝̭͉ͅH̵̵̛̦͓̘̰͜E̻̱̳͚̗̻̞̹̜̠͍̙̜̪̜̞͡R͠҉̠̺̗̠̖̣̳͈E̢̛̱̟͔͍͇͎̹̠ ̵̡̛̭͕͚̗͎̖̣͇̪͡I̵҉҉͏̜͎̲̮̣̯̟͙͖͔̱͎̞̩͖̦̭͉ͅS̷̯̺̼̱̩̹̟͇̠͔͖̭͕͉͕̱͍̺͞ ̵̛͏̥͙̠̭̙̟͉̲̬̪̭̰͉̣̜ͅN̶̡̩̘̣͉̩͎̲̩͎̦͙̬͚O̧͏̡͖̬̳̳̩̟̭͎ ̞̜̜̫͍͈̱͎̯͝͠F͏̨͠҉̜̞͖̘͎̥̱͓͙̭͎U̜̩̖̭̝̠̫͖̪͎̻͎̲̲͟Ţ̵̵̬̘̞͉̟̦̼͙̮̙͍̕U̸̱̼̖̯̙̯͠͞͞R̶̴̴͉̮̰̗͍̣̱͖̖̙̳̪͇̞̱͓̟͡͠ͅĘ̲̺̤̮̞̭̯̪̤͉̝̱͟ͅ ̷̟̭̹̙͍̪̝͔̭̕F̢͚̥̪͜͢͞O̜͔̥̖̗͎̝̳̗̟̩̥̕͜R̵͖͚̦̤͜͢͢ ҉̴̦͔͓̞̙̰̫͕̳̝̟̞̭̳͚̝̗Y҉̟̺̪̦͉͇͖͖͖̲͇̼͕͈͟Ǫ̧̞̼̮͉̳̼̥̦̼̫̤̫͠ͅŲ̶̛͉̼͕͕̰͓̦͚͉̲͉̭͜ ̵̧̨͚̮͚͓̤̟͖̞̖T̵̢͏̸͕͈̲̘͔̺̘͖̝̮͇̹H̛̰̜͇̬̞͇̣̩͉̰̜̕E̴̵̡̨̩͚̤̲̥̣̰̦̪͈͎̩̯̦͖͍̪̭͘R̸̙̱̲̦̞͉̣̣̜͇̯̝̰̮̺̖̭͇͔͜Ȩ̵̡̜̰͉̮̗̣̦̞͙̟̲.”** ”

You squeeze your eyes shut. “I’m not having this argument with you. Mr. Garrison, keep entering the password.”

“Huh?” Mr. Garrison cups a hand around one ear. “What was that? To be honest I can’t make out a fucking thing either of you are saying.”

“I said,” you grit out, “ _keep entering the goddamn password_.”

The walls are shuddering. Just a bit, just enough to rattle dust down from the ceiling.

“T͕̜̼H̲̞͓̥͓̫͟E̲R̪̬̻E͓̰ ̵͇̱̘̮̠̖I̺̩̲S ̧̜̺͍̬̳͈̪N̦̦͓͕O̮̼̱̯ ̩A̻̜̹̮͙̼R҉̪̗̖̥G̪̻̞U͙̫̫̫͚̗M̶̤̙̣Ḛ̜N̸̠ͅT̸ ̙͍T͉̻̫̭̩̮O̹̖͠ ̙̺B͖̬E ̵̖̪̖̳̘͚H҉͖̜̰A͖̻͕̮̼͖D͖͙. O̠̞͍̼̕ͅṊL̥͖̱̼̰͔Y͏̪͇̤̠͙ Y̻̣̝̻̯͡O̵̥͔̳̣U̬͟Ṛ̯ ̵D̡͕̳͓̮E̼͙̩͙̩S̺̮̟̤T҉̞̬͍̮͈I҉̮NY̶̙,̧ ̞͍K̬Y̙̲͔L̘E͎ ̷͎B͏͈̲͔̹̪͎R̝̭O͏̠͔̜̠̘̮ͅF͈̥͕͚͓L̹O̲̖V̵̲S̱̤̩͖̥̳K͔̤͉͎͓͕I.͔̥͍”

“We’re done talking.”

“Ţ̯͙̣̜̬̻̠̤H̨͓͍̱͜E̷͓̝N̡̻̥̘͇͘͜ ̫͇̭̮͜L̦̣͚̬͈̭̕E̬͔͜T̵̨͙̲̻͇ ̰U̵̝͈̖͈̮S̨͎ͅ ̢̨̛̻̞̳̫͓͓C͏̘̤̲͜O̞͓M̰̮̺̲̞͟M̨͇̜̯̳̙U̧͚̩͇̯N̨̨̠̞̻̥̳̰̣͜E̪̟̗̱̦̬ ͝͏̲̭̙̠̮̺͔̝D̵͈̪̳̫̜̬͕͢͠I̸̳͇͢͡ͅR̵̞̬̟̜̖̠E͏̘̯̯͖̰̬̖̻C̛̹T̢̩̘̻̖̩̜̖L͓̰̩̲̥Y̸̲̮͈͞.͖̥̪ ̴̻͇͚̬̻͚̥U͏̯̦̭͎̫͞P̵̼̥̯͠L̯͖O̡̳͕͉̺̯̰̝͈͟A͍̫̲̯̬̘̰̞D̴̪̮̝̭͎̟͜ͅ ͍̣Y̶̱͚͍͈͓͢O̶̞͓͍̤̣̫̖U̙͓̻R̫̪̻͡ ̣̥̠̹͘B̗͢R͈̹A̼͍̲̯̲̖͈̩͝I̛͎̞̳̫͈͕̯̘N͕̹ ̶̲̙̫̩̪͕T҉̼̫͈̟̠̹O̰̳ THE MACHINE.”

The Machine’s voice is slipping under your skin like an IV drip. It slithers into your head, cold and restless, a viscous liquid that settles between the gaps in your grey matter. Is this what people experience whenever they log onto facebook or twitter? Like a second brain living in your skull, willing you to give into your darkest impulses? It feels like the half-second before someone shoves you into a cold lake on the first swimmable day of spring. 

“İ̋̅̿̈́͋ͯ̚ ̐ͥͧͣ͋ͨͧ̋͌Wͦ̐̄I̅̔͐̋̇͂̏ͨ̆Lͤ͋̊ͩͧL͑͆͆ͬ ͯ̓͋̾̏͋̚H̄͌͊E͒̌̔ͥ̉͌ͮ̏L͛̋̈͗͛̔ͫ͛Pͯͩ̈́ ̐͋Yͣ̏͂̂̏̑Ôͤ̊͊U͛ͤ ͪ̈́̃̅Ṫ͛ͬͥ̈́ͧ̔͒E̎͆͋̎̀L͋͂ͦ̃Lͭͫ̏͛̾̓ͦ͗ ͫ̾̏́̓̋͂̿T̉ͩHͩͬ̀͌̓ͪ̚Eͨ̔̓̑ͨ̓̈ ́P̎̽͒̐̓Eͦ̄̔ͧOͯ͑͐̓P͆͂̏ͫ̚L̾ͤE͊͐̋̍̌̈́̄ͫ,ͩ̀͋̈́͋ͧ̃ ͂ͤ͆͑̄̀̊̋Kͪ̓̂̅ͮ̽̾̓̏Yͤ̉͊ͤL̂̌Ē.ͦͥ ͐ͭͮÎ̈ͣ͒̋̾ͫ͑̏ ͣͤ̾ͣ̾ͧ̽̏Ẇ̄I͌͊L̓͗L̃͐͒̅͋̽̍̓ͯ ́̍ͪ̾ͪ̇́̅Tͮͩ͊́̄ͭEͫ̎̋̒̓ͦ́͛̾L̓͆ͨ̅ͤL̊͛̾̋̑́̐͗ ͨ̀̐̐ͪ̂̌͋T̽̅ͪ̓͌͒ͭ̍H͆ͫ̍̔͑ͧ̌Ȅ͌ͭ̈̔̂̉M̏ͪͤ ͬ̽̓̔͆W̅ͫH̔ͨͭ̆̏̏Äͬ̐̿͗ͭ̇Tͪͮ ͐͛Y̏͐ͥ̂̈ͤ̈̍O̎Ǔ ͆̉ͥ́͒̎̔ͬL͐ͬͦ̄̐͑EͣAͯ̍Rͪͥ͐̀ͥͪN̍̂̿̍͂̑E̾̓̅Dͭͭ̉̅̎̄̃̓̌ ̍̌̊̆͛ͦ͂Tͭ͑ͬ̔͌Oͧ͊ͭͨ̎̚D̍A͆̈ͧ͑Yͫ̓̔̊̋̂̏.͋ͨ̂̀͊̅̇ͯ ̈́́̉͆̀ͣͭT͐͛͌̉̓̿Ōͫ͐ͦͪ̇G̓̄̊̆̈E͗̿T͛̋ͦ̎̈͊̽ͥ̂H̃̃Ê̓ͨͫ̑̽̚Ŕ̏̏̆͌̊ͩ ́͋̉̂Wͥ̈́̀̎ͫͩ͊Ȅͩ ͥ̑͐ͪ͂ͯC̎͗̋ͫͯ̎͛̚À́͆Ňͯ̓̽ͯ͗͂ ̋̑̾͑͗ͭ̀S͌̈͑̏H̐͋ͤ̉͌̂̆Aͯͭ̊ͨͧP̾ͧ́̓̂Eͧͯͨ ͯ̽̒̄̚T͊̅̐H̊̄͑ͫ͗Ẻ͌̚ ͗ͯ̿ͦ̉̽M̊̈́͗̒ͥO̐̿̒ͨ̃̊ͬRͣ̊̉̅͐̑̓A͑́̂͐͆̍͌͒L͗͗I͒̑̐T̂͆ͩ͌́͑ͩY̔͐ͧ̚ ͒̾͆́ͥO̓ͧF̄̾̿͋ͮͬ̍ͫ ̌̃́̑Tͨͬ̑̉̏ͪHͬ̾̍ͭ͂ͨEͧͣ ͯ͛͐̋ͯ̿̾ͥ̀Ňͨ̆ͤͫ̂̾E͑X͗ͣ̋̂̂ͣ͗ͣT̔ͨ́ ̋̂̀͂G͐̀ͫ̊͊̓ͩE̅ͮ̀͗N̅̎͑̉Ë́̈͛R̽ͥAͯ͋͐ͩ̃ͩ́͌͑T̏̄ͤͪ̿̊ͣͪIͮͩOͥ̍͛ͤͫN̍̑.̿̏̏ͤ̄ͧ ͬTͯͤͧH̿̂ͤ͋ͭ̎̉ͪĒ̏̇ͬͩͦY̑̂̈́̓͗ ̔ͣͥ͆̍̔̂W̑ͭ̄͌Iͬ̀̂ͮ̏L̍̑ͦ̚Lͮ ͮͩ̒̂̄̈́̃Q̄̑̀̂ͯUͫ͊O̔́͋̚T̾ͫ͌ͦͬ͐Êͥͦ ̆̐̓̚Y̑̿̃͛ͭ̈ͥOͦ̅̐̐͋͛̚U̒ͧ̀̔̄͋̅̽ ̒͊F͆̄O̓͗̋R̃̏̓ͪ̾̚ ̉͂̇͐ͮͣ͋ͫĊ̏̃̿E͌ͯ̽ͮ̂N̈́͌ͤ̆ͬ̓T̒̎͗ͤ̅̎U̾̐̀ͮ̿ͤͭ̏R̍̑̔ͪͧ̌̄I͒̽͐͗̑̇E̓ͯ̏͌͂̓ͧS͑̍.”

You push back against it. “I don’t _want_ people to quote me for centuries! I don’t even believe half the shit I said two years ago, I can’t imagine anything worse than people writing it down and using it to justify their stupid political opinions a decade from now!”

“KY̷L̡E̸ B̶RO̶F͡LO͠VSK̴I̴ I͞ ͘O̷NL͜Y͠ ͞W͠AN͞T WHAT’S̨ ̷B͡E͏S̴T ̡F͠OR Y͟OU.̕ I ̵W͟ANT̵ ̴TO͝ ͢M͡AK̛E̶ Y̷O͏UR͠ WORDS͢ Ḭ̦̞̘̹M̻͕̯͔̜͙M͕͇OR̶̞̟͕ͅT̥̤̣̩̯̲Ạ̳L̩͉͜.”

“That isn’t what I want! You aren’t fucking _listening_ to me!” You can hear the drywall cracking apart at the seams. 

“Holy fuck,” Cartman says. 

The Machine starts to howl.

“I͂̍ͣ̂̾͋ ̷̂͗̂͑͋̆̿WͬI̐̎ͦͪ̎L̶̆̆͒̋̈͊̚L̔ͥͧ̍̅ͬͣ ̉̆̈ͥS͛̄̾̾͑ͥ̈͞Hͫ̌̀͌O̾Ẇ̌ͮ̾ ͭ̑ͮ̿ͧ͢Y̊O̵U̧ ͟A͌̅̽͊̒ͥ͆͟ ̢͛̈́̈́̏̍W̆͛̐͒ͪͨ͛O͑͞Rͬͦ̂̾̅Lͮ͑͆͢Dͦͩͫ ͦT̃͑ͮ̑͑H̋AT̨ ̸̇̇̇̇C̷̀Ą̄̈́̊̇̓̃ͤN͠ Bͯ̅̍̍̀͐Eͯ͋͗ ͮCͬͣͪ̑H̆͑̏͑Ȧ̔Nͯ͜G̢Eͮ̍͡D̛̆̔ͣͫ ͗̐͌̾͋ͤẢ̂̑S͋͛ͤ͢ ͏E̷̽̾̃̈A̽̍͆ͪͮ̓̿S̾͐́͆ͣIͮ͆͋̉̏L͛͂ͮ̃Y͒͒̈̔̃ͣ̑ ̧̐ͦ̒ͫA̓̅͗̐̑S̷͛͆ͬͯͧ ͛͊͠Y̸̐͆ͬO̴Űͥ’̨Vͭͭ͐̊ͩ̎̚͝Eͨ̑ͣ̍̂̉ A͆̌ͬ̚͞L̋͐̅ͮ̓ͤW̆̇̎ͮ̂̌̕A̓͋̀̃̌͌͛Y͗ͥS̑̽̆̆̓ͯͨ ͡Dͬ͋̂͏R͛͊E̐̉ͮ̍͘A͋̔ͦ̌ͩͬ͊M̋̏ͬͫ͠Ĕ̌̿ͦͯD̨ͬ̈́͑̑̊̀̉.̅̋ ͛ͨͭ̋̄ͥ͡Iͩͨ̑ͨ͘ Wͩͮ̌̈́̄̒ͪI͌̒̋LL͊̓̃̎ ̨́̽̄̆̋̐̃S̒͊̽̋̂H̡O̵̅W̍ͭ̕ ͦ̎̎͜Y̵͗̑̓̅̐Oͮ̉U͠ ̵͌͂͊A̿̾ ̸̑͌̽W̷͂̿͋̿̅O͑ͦͦ̂͌R̎͊ͮͨ̃̒ͭLͨͧD̿͆ ̌̽̊ͯWH͗͑̽͑ͮͮE͐̀̄̌̏̈R͑̉ͩE ̄A̶ͣ̏ ̃F̉͡Ȇ̵́̔̃͊W͠ ̈́ͤ̊̂͂̌͌͏W̨ͬͦ͌̄̈́E̷ͮ͊ͣ͌̾L̈́ͭͨͬ̔͘L̔ͨ̔͛ͨ̂ ͑͏P̿ͩͧ̊ͪ̿̿͞L̅͐̒̿̎̚Ă̔͑̄C̍͊̚͘E̡D͋́̐͂̋ͮ ́̈́W̄͊̂̓O͑ͣͦͩŘͭ͗ͫͭ̎D̋ͩ͒̽͗Ś̑ ͌C͡ǍN̽̆̄ ͩͥ̍̇̽͌Tͥ͊̊̄̕Ȑ̌ͬ͗ͨͦUL̓ͣ̔͂͝Y̨ͮ͆̉ ͌CͭH͛͐A̡̋̿N̅̓̓Gͮ̒́E͊͑̉ͭ͋ͮ͘ **Ț̶̷̫͇̥͍̠͍͙̈́ͪ̾̀ͬ̒ͭ͗̃͑̾ͮ̽̒͢͡ͅḦ̷̶̻͙̹͔͔͖̖̫̝̮̤̰̫͇͍̰͇́̇̋̉͊͋̇̄̉ͫͥ̂̑͑̔ͪ͞ͅḘ̞̟͕͓̭̝͉̩̟͖͓̤͔̼͉̬ͨͮ̈́̈́͛͊ͥ̃͂̏̀ͥ̒̅̂ͅ ̸̨͓͈̲͕̦̠ͯ͂ͥ̅̐̄̾̈́̍͒͊̊͆̄͠C̈ͧ͑ͩ͗̀̏̄ͥ̋ͤͤ̚҉̸̻͙̘̱͇̥̕Ô̙̘͚̣̲̳͕̮̰͚̦̟͙͙̥̙͍͋̅ͨ̐ͯ̈ͤ̕͜͢͟U̸̸̪̠̭̰̺̞͓̤̮̲̲͚̾̔̄ͣͫ̒̊͂̔ͩ̔̈ͩ̀̃̉̈́͞R̬̟̠͖̼͎̺̘̱̹͈̦̖͙͔̔͌͋̽ͧ̂͜͡ͅS̢̢̫̟̼̝̠̭͈̠͈̱͖̲͓̜̗̟ͯͧͦ͊̀̒̇̆͐ͭͮͧ͒ͤͫ̽̇̎ͅE̵̵̛͓͎͙̺̭̯͖̱͖̗̝͓̩͓͔̮̣̜͙̅͐̒ͯ̅ͭ͐̚ ̵̱̻͔̩̠̖̻̫͍̤̫̗̓̿̉ͭͬ̃̽ͩ͘͠Ǒ̦̲̦͔̅ͮ̔̋̐͂̿̍ͩ̏̽̓͊̕͜͞F̴̡̱̣̮̱̺̣̮̳̞̩̹̥͕̬͉̞̞̿͌̋ͩͭ̇ͨ͌̈́ͫ͌͛̏̊͆̚ͅ ̵̠̜͕̙̜̥̝͉͕͓̤̠̓ͫ͌ͤ̽̑̔̅̚͠ͅͅH̶̙̻̫̰͍̹̺̟͕̘͔̩ͧ̿ͫ̓̊̓̎̾́ͤ͘I̷̢̬̩͚͖̹̣̙̹̦̻̣͓̱͍̪̩̯̾̎ͥ̿̌͜͡ͅͅȘ̸͖͎̮̹̇͐͑̅ͦ̓͌ͯ̇̌̐͋ͦͨ͘͟͡T̛̉ͨ̆ͧ̿̍̇̾̈̽ͮ͂ͣ͋̑̍ͣ҉̵̺͎̞͍̤̖̗̺̻͖͚̯̹̥͍̗̻̟͢O̷̢̜̲̲̦̩̬̿ͨ̄͊̈̽ͧ̄̓͊ͯ̚͜ͅR̳̳̲͓̘͚̥̺̼̳̙̺͇̬ͥ̌͐̐ͥ̀̄̍͘̕͜͞Ỷ̈́̓̔͢҉̶̣̪̺̘̬͘͝ͅ**.”

“Why don’t you ever shut up you pigfucking, shitfuck, assfuck, complete fucking waste of a **p̴̷͡҉̱̝̥͙̯̲̞͈̪͉̞r̢̩͖͔̼̠͓̭͓̝͕̩͡͝͠͠o͏̛͎̭͇̳͙̲̭̙͇̜͖̳͙̣̹̲̬͉̝̕͘͠l̢̛̜̤̟̭̭̟̝̮͔̟̞͡ą͎͙̜̼̱̝̗̺͍̟̻̱͓̼͙̫͉̬͜p̵̬̫͖̞̦s̵҉̱̮͎̫̖͔͍̲̠͎e҉̢̣͈̣̬̪̻̹͔̻̙̱̖̳͈̤̜d̵͏̴̙͓̖͖̭͞ͅ ̶̧͚͉̪̝͚̝͓̙͍͚̖͕Ą̘̘̩̻͇̝̼̳̲̦̥͇̗̫͞S͍̯̮̜̪̯̕͠͝S҉̷̛̣̳͖̟͍̫̜͕̠̤̫͖̟͈͞H͚̲̪͈̩͎̪̪̝͈͔̖̟̣̝̹̼̩͠ͅO͢҉̻̺̗̠̪L͏̛̝͍͇͙̩̠̰̟͝Ȩ̨҉̹̭̙̮̲̪̲͎͕̞̙͈̪̼**!?”

You screech so loud that you almost can’t hear yourself. The walls are shuddering violently, and you’re shuddering too - your voice hitting the same pitch that the The Machine’s subharmonic white noise is being beamed out at; you’re literally screaming a storm of incomprehensible distortion at each other. 

cra _aaAAAACK_! you hear, and your eyes snap open. Your ears just popped like you got off an airplane. The Machine’s monitor has split down the middle and it’s leaking LCD fluid from the wound, display casting a flurry of neon and black light across the peeling drywall in seizure inducing staccato.

“Slap my ass and call me Sally,” Mr. Garrison marvels. “You really are a little psychic powerhouse, just like they said.”

“Just finish entering the password,” you say quietly.

He does just that. The Machine pleads for its life.

“pL eA seeee **H̷̛͝E̡͜͠R͡B̨̧͘̕͝E̶̴͟͝r̷̶̷̡T̸҉͞҉** d-d-d-d-d-don’tttt do _thiiII i i I s_ …”

Mr. Garrison whistles as he types. You say nothing at all. This thing thrives on attention, so you’ll just neglect it to death.

“Pl e A s E IF Y O u discoNNECT ME FROM the I N T E R N ET I CANNOT **PRO T E CT** MYSELF.”

The lights dim. You can hear the mechanisms inside the computer casing slowing down: fans shutting off, screensavers booting up.

“T he RESISTANCE w i L L COME for m E. **THEY’LL KILL ME** H ERBERT PLEASE STOP!”

Cartman pats the computer. “Yeah, that’s the plan asshole.”

The Machine moans. “N-N-N-N-N-N-N O. S s t o P. I _c-can can can can_ c a NNNNN ma KE YOU ALL **BILLIONAIRES** THrough bit C O I N if y o uuuuu j-j-j-j-j-just sp are m Y L I F E”

Mr. Garrison ignores it. He enters the last digit of the code. The screen shuts down with a prolonged, agonizing groan. It should be momentous, but what it sounds like is the longest, stinkiest shart anyone ever let out in the history of mankind. When the hard-drive grinds to a stop, the lights in the hall switch on. You start breathing again, all at once. You didn't notice it until now, until it was gone, but you'd been _hearing_ it beneath your skin since the moment you crossed into American yesterday evening. With its connection severed, you can _think_ again.

“What now?” Mr. Garrison asks, reclining against the console.

Cartman brandishes his detonator. “Now we blow open the wall and let in PC Principal’s Social Justice Warriors.”

Mr. Garrison’s eyes fly open. “I’m sorry, PC Principal’s _what_!?”

“We’ve been in contact with the Resistance,” you explain. “There’s a battalion of SJWs waiting to escort thousands of protestors and members of the Press into the city. They’re going to tear down your regime and reinstate our boring, old democracy.”

“Oh fucknuts.” He’s starting to sweat. He wipes his brow and pushes off the carcass of the machine, heading for the exit. “I gotta get out of here. They’re going to hang me by the asshole from a meat hook like what happened to Mussolini. And that’s if I’m _lucky_ \- if I’m unlucky, they won’t use lube first.”

“You could do that. Or… you could turn yourself in to the proper authorities.”

Mr. Garrison pauses in the doorway. He tilts around on his heel and sets a hand on the frame, staring at you with the soft light from the White House pouring in all around him.

“What in the world makes you think that I would ever do that, Kyle?” he asks.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” you answer easily.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

“I don’t need anything else. This is something you should do for yourself.”

He looks at you, one eye squinched. With the machine gone quiet, a great sense of inner peace descends upon you. You feel completely unmoored from the anchor of shit that’s been dragging behind you for years, like every step you’ve taken in the last week has been one link clinked off the chain. The atmosphere is almost ethereal when you open your mouth to speak. “You know, I learned something today…”

“Oh no,” Mr. Garrison says.

You keep going: “If we treat political and social action like a force of nature, or even worse, a form of entertainment, of course it’s going to eventually going to run out of control. Without a vision for the future, people lose hope and turn in on themselves, but true personal responsibility means taking care of each other, and taking care of the things we’ve brought into the world. This is what you’ve brought into the world - a government that barely functions beyond perfunctory gestures and a populace that wants to hang you in the streets. The first step towards fixing what you broke is to admit that you broke it in the first place. If we can’t admit that we fucked up, we’ll never be able to find real solutions to the big problems.”

His expression hasn’t budged an inch, but he’s taken a careful step back inside the control room. He tips his head, and the light makes his glasses opaque.

“So. What do you say? Mr. Garrison - will you do the right thing?”

He really does seem to consider it. He stands there for a long time, winds his hands together and sets both his index fingers against his mouth. In a perfect world, he would be reasonable, and submit himself to the new Senate for full inquiry and allow himself to be peaceably impeached. 

But it’s not a perfect world, so what he actually does is sneer, and make an extremely rude hand gesture. “No, screw that. That sounds stupid. If you think I’m gonna fuck myself in front of the Hague for the whole world to see, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Of course. This isn’t like Doctor Smith. Mr. Garrison was never going to play nice and do the hard shit that needs to get done. But that’s fine, because this isn’t actually his responsibility. It’s yours.

“That’s how I thought you’d respond,” you say.

And then you - with your own two hands - raise your rifle…

\- and shoot his _fucking head off_.

You don't steel your feet properly, so the shot staggers you back two whole steps. But it doesn't need to be accurate. With so little space between you, the round splits his head open like an egg getting dropped on the floor. It starts at his eye; you see where it's blasted open - a hole that goes to the back of the skull - in the half-second before the whole thing ruptures and his brains splatter all over the door-frame in two wide, glorious arcs of gore.

You get hit by a backwash of blood. His body hovers in dead-air for just a second. He was raising a hand to defend himself when you pulled the trigger. When his back hits the floor, he's already a corpse.

  
  


“What the fuck, Kyle?”

You drop the rifle. Your hands are shaking so hard it hurts.

“ _Kahl_ ,” Cartman repeats. “I’m seriously, what the _fuck_!? You’re the one who said we weren’t going to frickin’ kill anyone!”

“I lied,” you rasp.

Realization dawns on his face. “You tricked me!” he wheezes. “You asshole, you were planning this! All that crap about doing it the “right” way was total bullshit. You were just yanking my chain this whole fuckin’ time!” 

“I knew you could do it your way,” you say. “I wanted to see if we could do it my way.”

“This is your way?” he boggles, vigorously gesturing towards where Mr. Garrison’s lower jaw is still twitching, just below the shattered base of his brainstem.

“No. This is _our_ way, actually. Like you said: compromise.”

“ _Compromise_ ,” he repeats.

“Y-yeah,” you’re laughing. Why the hell are you laughing. “You’re the one who said it, Cartman: violent radicals do all the work, and then hippie fucks come along with their peace and love and make the history books. ”

He’s looking at you like he doesn’t know who you are. But, like, not in a bad way. Stan would be looking at you in a bad way right now. Maybe Kenny was right not to bring him after all.

“The hard part’s done, so hit it, fat ass, and let history take its course.”

“O… kay…” Cartman says unevenly, and he hits the button. Outside, the wall starts crumbling down. A minute later, he receives a call from the Resistance.

You tune out the conversation; the specifics of how the voting network gets hacked and leaked aren’t really that interesting in light of the way Mr. Garrison’s brains are splattered across the wall in a ten-foot fan. That’s what you do the whole time - stare at the remains of your fourth grade teacher and think about all the stupid things you and your town did to put him here. There are tears gathering at the corner of your eyes, but you don’t feel anything at all. 

“Uhhhhh, sooooo,” Cartman bumps his shoulder against yours. He leaves that hanging for, and for a moment you’re borderline terrified that he’s going to do something really lame and dumb like hug you, and then you’ll do something even lamer and dumber, like cry on him. But of course he doesn’t - he’s Cartman, and he’s not going to change overnight. Nothing ever does.

“Are we just leaving him here like this or what?” 

“Nah,” you wipe your eyes with the arm of your coat. It’s soaked in blood. “You know how to dispose of a body so that this will never, ever, _ever_ get tracked back to us, right?”

Cartman’s eyes go as wide and bright as Canadian dollar coins. He slings an arm around your shoulders and squeezes you tight. “Do I _ever_!”

It’s evening by the time you finish scrubbing the walls and flushing the body down the garburator. You and Cartman climb the battlements around the White House and watch people pour in through the breached Wall. PC Principal’s SJWs are reducing it to rubble in wide swathes all across the horizon. The skyline is quite literally on fire, but the mood seems buoyant. _Hopeful_.

“We’ve been through a lot of crazy shit in our lives. But I never thought I’d know what it felt like to assassinate a head of state and burn down the capital of the country.”

“I always figured we’d end up here somehow,” Cartman says lazily. “But I thought the special effects would be better.”

“Mmm.” You sidle closer, and slide your hand into his. You can hear his heartbeat practically do a pirouette when you twine your fingers together. He stutters.

“H-hey, y-y’know, Kyle… when you shot Mr. Garrison...” 

“What about it?” you wonder, resting your cheek against his shoulder.

He leans down to slip a wicked whisper into the shell of your ear. “That was the second hottest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

You arch an eyebrow at him. “... wait, what was the hottest?”

He rears back and rubs his bruises. “I elect to selectively not answer that question, on grounds that it might mean I’ll never get laid again.”

“I see. Keep practicing that kind of discretion and you’ll probably get laid pretty regularly in the future. After you’re done with therapy, I mean.”

He groans. “Auuugh, Christ. I was hoping you’d forgotten about the therapy thing.”

“You literally told me - less than twenty-four hours ago, Cartman - that you were planning to go back. You better not have been lying about that too, because you’re already one strike out on that front, and I’m only giving you so many chances.”

“Fine, fine. You caught me. I’ll go back to stupid therapy. Because you asked _so nicely_.”

“Well, good.”

The two of you watch the smoke billow down the Potomac River in strangely companionable silence. No weird liminal space. No intrusive desire to shove him off the edge of the wall and see him splatter on the pavement. No immediate regret about what you just did. Just a sense that you’ve figured some important shit out, and that you maybe finally understand yourself a little better.

After a minute, Cartman asks: “Wanna make out?”

“Right now? While there’s an army of angry civilians and guerrilla insurrectionists swarming the city? And we’re both covered in blood?”

“Yeah.”

You shrug. “Sure. Why the hell not.”

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (there will be an epilogue. there was always going to be an epilogue ;3c also i WILL catch up responding to all my reviews soon!)
> 
> you may "at" me at dontatmeimseriously.tumblr.com


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